AFFECTIGN OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 373 



to be asking for their food. As soon as they receive 

 their portion, they draw them back and remain quiet. 

 These she feeds until they become pupae; and within 

 twelve hours after being excluded in their perfect state, 

 they eagerly set to work in constructing fresh cells, and 

 in lightening the burthen of their parent by assisting 

 her in feeding the grubs of other workers and females 

 which are by this time born. In a few weeks the so- 

 ciety will have received an accession of several hun- 

 dred workers and many females, which without distinc- 

 tion apply themselves to provide food for the growing 

 grubs, now become exceedingly numerous. With this 

 object in view, as they collect little or no honey from 

 flowers, they are constantly engaged in predatory ex- 

 peditions. One party will attack a hive of bees, a 

 grocer's sugar hogshead, or other saccharine reposi- 

 tory; or, if these fail, the juice of a ripe peach or pear. 

 You will be less indignant than formerly at these au- 

 dacious robbers now you know that self is little consi- 

 dered in their attacks, and that your ravaged fruit has 

 supplied an exquisite banquet to the most tender grubs 

 of the nest, into whose extended mouths the successful 

 marauders, running with astonishing agility from one 

 cell to another, disgorge successively a small portion 

 of their booty in the same way that a bird supplies her 

 young ^. Another party is charged with providing more 

 substantial aliment for the grubs of maturer growth. 

 These wage war upon bees, flies, and even the meat of 

 a butcher's stall, and joyfully return to the nest laden 

 with the well-filled bodies of the former, or pieces of 

 the latter as large as they can carry. This solid food 



* See Willughby in Rai. Hist. Ins. 251. and Rcaiun. 



