HTMENOPTERA. ACULEATA. 217 



house." Unlike the drones among the Bees, \vhich seem 

 to live only on sufferance, the male Wasps, acting as 

 scavengers, undertakers, &c., are a welcome and useful 

 portion of the community. 



Throughout the summer, then, the varied labours of 

 these citizens continue, the chief work being the care 

 and feeding of the young. These, supplied at first with 

 juices of fruits and such like tender fare, are presently 

 promoted to an animal diet composed of insects or meat, 

 half digested for them by their careful nurses ; and this 

 as they approach their full growth, is exchanged for the 

 stronger nutriment afforded by these substances in almost 

 their natural state. 



There is little left to add to this history except the 

 closing scene. It has been said that the societies of 

 Wasps are strictly annual. Like all other Hymenopte- 

 rous insects, Wasps are keenly sensitive to change of 

 temperature, and the first few frosts are fatal to them. 



What, then, is the lingering death in store for the 

 young, hitherto so carefully fed and tended ? Warmly 

 sheltered in their little cells, it seems that they must 

 survive their tender nurses, to die of gradual starva- 

 tion, instead of by the quicker operation of the frost. 

 But this is not the way in which such things are 

 ordered. The nurses, for whom no labour has seemed 

 too great, whose care for their young has up to this time 

 been increasing, now suddenly seize upon them, and, 

 tearing them from their cells, kill, without exception, 

 every single grub, and scatter the bodies outside the 

 desolated nest. 



By this expedient, an expedient second only to that 

 found in the marvellous system of prey, a quick and 

 easy death is substituted for one of slow privation and 



