FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



famine : they have not suffered from cold : they have not 

 suffered from home-sickness. Then what have they 

 died of? 



We must not blame their captivity. The same thing 

 happens in the open country. \^arious nests I have in- 

 spected at the end of December all show the same condi- 

 tion. The vast majority of Wasps must die, apparently, 

 not by accident, nor illness, nor the inclemency of the 

 season, but by an inevitable destiny, which destroys them 

 as energetically as it brings them into life. And it is 

 well for us that it is so. One female Wasp is enough 

 to found a city of thirty thousand inhabitants. If all 

 were to survive, what a scourge they would be! The 

 Wasps would tyrannise over the countryside. 



In the end the nest itself perishes. A certain Cater- 

 pillar which later on becomes a mean-looking Moth; 

 a tiny reddish Beetle; and a scaly grub clad in gold 

 velvet, are the creatures that demolish it. They gnaw 

 the floors of the various storeys, and crumble the whole 

 dwelling. A few pinches of dust, a few shreds of brown 

 paper are all that remain, by the return of spring, of the 

 Wasps' city and its thirty thousand inhabitants. 



[156] 



