COMMON WASPS 



of their appearance. Their backs are dusty. While 

 they are well they dust themselves without ceasing, and 

 their black-and-yellow coats are kept perfectly glossy. 

 Those who are ailing are careless of cleanliness; they 

 stand motionless in the sun or wander languidly about. 

 They no longer brush their clothes. 



This indifference to dress is a bad sign. Two or three 

 days later the dusty female leaves the nest for the last 

 time. She goes outside, to enjoy yet a little of the sun- 

 light; presently she slides quietly to the ground and 

 does not get up again. She declines to die in her be- 

 loved paper home, where the code of the Wasps ordains 

 absolute cleanliness. The dying Wasp performs her 

 own funeral rites by dropping herself into the pit at 

 the bottom of the cavern. For reasons of health these 

 stoics refuse to die in the actual house, among the combs. 

 The last survivors retain this repugnance to the very 

 end. It is a law that never falls into disuse, however 

 greatly reduced the population may be. 



My cage becomes emptier day by day, notwithstand- 

 ing the mildness of the room, and notwithstanding the 

 saucer of honey at which the able-bodied come to sip. 

 At Christmas I have only a dozen females left. On the 

 sixth of January the last of them perishes. 



Whence arises this mortality, which mows down the 

 whole of my wasps? They have not suffered from 



[155] 



