NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



Our inns may have advanced beyond the standard of 

 the Goethe-pere, but our wasps are still so far "priv- 

 ileged" that they rarely fail to pluck the spider from its 

 web. 



The huntress wasp has other preserves than cobwebs. 

 She flutters over flowers, burrows among fallen leaves, 

 creeps with nervous, twitching tread along branches of 

 trees and bushes, wherever spiders dwell or hunt, and 

 snatches them away to add to the growing store within 

 her egg-nest. When the cavity is filled, the opening is 

 sealed up and the spiders are literally entombed alive 

 within that clay sarcophagus. 



If at this stage one should open the cell, he might 

 challenge the statement that the spiders are alive. 

 They seem to be dead; but in fact are simply paralyzed. 

 The poison which the wasp's sting injects within her 

 captive's tissues may kill at once, and often does so; 

 but more commonly suspends activity without destroy- 

 ing life. So, when the larval waspkin first feels the 

 pangs of hunger, it finds in reach abundant natural food. 

 Thus, before the era of man, nature, in the person of a 

 wasp, had attained the art of preserving animal flesh 

 without impairing its value as food. 



The author's observation of wasp-stung spiders taken 

 from their captors indicates that the virus may retain 

 its preservative effect for at least two weeks before 

 death ensues. In the cells the period would probably 

 be longer, but that amply covers the time taken for 

 hatching and the larval stage of the waspkin. During 

 this period the victims remained motionless, alive but 

 apparently without sensation, and there was no re- 

 covery from the poison. Indeed, the extended experi- 

 ments of Professor and Mrs. Peckham in their fascinat- 



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