The Languedocian Sphex 



gathering women that I would meet the 

 reader, if he be not discouraged by the petty 

 annoyances of which I have given him a fore- 

 taste. The Languedocian Sphex frequents 

 these points, not in tribes congregating at the 

 same spot when nest-building work begins, 

 but as solitary individuals, sparsely distrib- 

 uted, settling wherever the chances of their 

 vagabondage lead them. Even as her kins- 

 woman, the Yellow-winged Sphex, seeks the 

 society of her kind and the animation of a 

 yard full of workers, the Languedocian Sphex 

 prefers isolation, quiet and soHtude. Graver 

 of gait, more formal in her manners, of a 

 larger size and also more sombrely clad, she 

 always lives apart, not caring what others do, 

 disdaining company, a genuine misanthrope 

 among the Sphegidae. The one is sociable, 

 the other is not: a profound difference which 

 in itself is enough to characterize them. 



This amounts to saying that, with the 

 Languedocian Sphex, the difficulties of ob- 

 servation increase. No long-meditated ex- 

 periment is possible in her case; nor, when 

 the first attempts have failed, can one hope to 

 try them again, on the same occasion, with a 

 second or a third subject and so on. If you 

 prepare the materials for your observation in 

 145 



