80 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



tangible result, the residue found on evaporation, so to 

 speak, of the Famine Commission, there is no allusion to 

 this momentous subject] 



In making calculations, however, it must be remembered 

 that all these waspy tribes do not combine to exterminate 

 grass-spiders. A large fellow of the hornet pattern always 

 appears dragging along fat green caterpillars, another pre- 

 fers the smaller caterpillar of a particular kind of moth, 

 another collects house-spiders, another aphides, another flies, 

 one is said to stock its nest with honey-bees, and just now 

 a large red individual owns several extensive burrows in 

 my floor, in which it is stowing away the carcases of those 

 ridiculous, long-legged, green, grasshopperish animals which 

 come about the lamp at night and have a ver}' shrill voice. 

 I doubt if any two kinds eat the same thing. As little will 

 any two do the same thing, or do a thing the same way, if 

 there are two possible ways of doing it. Many kinds build 

 mud barracks, but no two upon the same plan. The large 

 red hornet, which chooses a site on the back of the door, 

 arranges a row of chambers side by side, like sepoys' lines. 

 It is a coarse workman, and the whole suite of apartments, 

 when finished, looks like one large dab of mud. Another 

 builds a single bomb-proof dome, which \\hen you break 



