OBSERVATIONS ON INSECT LIFE 183 



joined in the act of plunder. It did not attack with 

 the same gallantry as the queen ; it was very unwilling 

 to approach the hive, and only at a favourable moment 

 would it dart in upon its prey. 



On another occasion I saw the Vespa plundering 

 the compact swarm. The bees had gathered into a 

 seething globular mass. They hung suspended from 

 a branch, a trembling globe replete with danger and 

 quivering with angry life. A few workers were 

 leaving ; many more were arriving to join the clustered 

 swarm. A Vespa magnified appeared. It hovered 

 about the black heaving mass, but it feared to come 

 too close. It never dared to extract a worker from 

 the swarm. It awaited its chance a little distance 

 away and occasionally fell upon a vagrant worker as 

 it was about to leave or join the throng. The Vespa 

 magnifica is therefore a plundering and rapacious 

 species, and I have no doubt, from the way these 

 wasps systematically remove victim after victim, that 

 they must work great destruction amongst the hives 

 of the Himalayan honey-bees. 



Wasps and bees occasionally mimic other insects to 

 which they bear a close resemblance both in structure 

 and habits. Some of the digger-wasps are very simi- 

 lar in appearance to certain ants. Amongst a number 

 of ants belonging to the species Camponotus compressus 

 that were seeking for aphides on a rose bush I noticed 

 a little Pompilid wasp running eagerly about. It 

 resembled the ants even to minute points in its anatom- 

 ical structure ; it moved with the same jerky gait ; it 

 vibrated its antennae in a similar manner and system- 

 atically searched each leaf just as though it was a 

 Camponotus ant, 



