70 THE RING OF NATURE 



living. Nevertheless, none of our bees have 

 folding wings, and they remain the unfailing 

 trade-mark of the wasp. 



The solitary wasp when found will furnish an 

 even more exciting exhibition than the leaf-cutter 

 or the mason bee. The food it supplies to its 

 future progeny has not the keeping qualities of 

 honey. It consists of caterpillars, flies, gnats, or 

 other animal substances, according to the species 

 of the wasp, which usually, with the unerring skill 

 of a trained entomologist, selects some particular 

 species of some particular genus for its prey. 

 Seeing that a dead gnat or caterpillar will go bad 

 in a week or even before the grub that ought to 

 live on it for several weeks is born, the wasp must 

 adopt some system of cold storage or preservation, 

 in order to prolong its keeping qualities. 



The caterpillar might be supplied alive, but 

 then its struggles would prove too much for the 

 tiny maggot that begins to eat it. But if the 

 wasp mother stings it lightly just in the right 

 nerve ganglion, that will paralyse it and render 

 it docile to the devourer and as little subject to 

 decay as a man in a trance. They are not merely 

 superficial observers but biological, distinguishing 

 apparently between similar species by differences 

 in the nervous systems, or, in other words, by the 

 situation of the place where a sting will paralyse 

 the victim without killing it. The insect thus 

 deftly stabbed remains alive for days and even 

 weeks, but all the time motionless and fit prey 



