The Languedocian Sphex 



prey: once she has captured her quarry, she 

 comes flying home at a speed which makes 

 questions of distance quite immaterial. 

 Hence she prefers as the site for her burrow 

 the place where she herself was born, the 

 place where her forbears lived; she here in- 

 herits deep galleries, the accumulated work 

 of earlier generations; and, by repairing them 

 a little, she makes them serve as approaches 

 to new chambers, which are in this way bet- 

 ter protected than they would be if they de- 

 pended upon the labours of a single Wasp, 

 who had to start boring from the surface 

 each year. This happens, for instance, in 

 the case of the Great Cerceris and the Bee- 

 eating Philanthus. And, should the ancestral 

 abode not be strong enough to withstand the 

 rough weather from one year to the next and 

 to be handed down to the offspring, should 

 the burrower have each time to start her tun- 

 nelling afresh, at least the Wasp finds greater 

 safety in places consecrated by the experience 

 of her forerunners. Consequently she goes 

 there to dig her galleries, each of which 

 serves as a corridor to a group of cells, thus 

 effecting an economy in the aggregate labour 

 expended upon the whole business of the lay- 

 ing. 



149 



