The Volucella 



jumbled crowd of feasters in the ruined 

 Wasps'-nest. We will concern ourselves 

 only with the most remarkable, in the front 

 rank of which stands the Volucella. 



She is a gorgeous and powerful Fly; and 

 her costume, with its brown and yellow 

 bands, shows a vague resemblance to that of 

 the Wasps. Our fashionable theorists have 

 availed themselves of this brown and yellow 

 to cite the Volucella as a striking instance of 

 protective mimicry. Obliged, if not on her 

 own behalf, at least on that of her family, 

 to introduce herself as a parasite into the 

 Wasp's home, she resorts, they tell us, to 

 trickery and craftily dons her victim's livery. 

 Once inside the Wasps'-nest, she is taken for 

 one of the inhabitants and attends quietly to 

 her business. 



The simplicity of the Wasp, duped by a 

 very clumsy imitation of her garb, and the 

 depravity of the Fly, concealing her identity 

 under a counterfeit presentment, exceed the 

 limits of my credulity. The Wasp is not so 

 silly nor the Volucella so clever as we are 

 assured. If the latter really meant to de- 

 ceive the Wasp by her appearance, we must 

 admit that her disguise is none too successful. 

 Yellow sashes round the abdomen do not 

 make a Wasp. It would need more than 

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