More Hunting Wasps 



where, for lack of sufficient food, it does not 

 attain half its normal size. 



A Leucospis ^ inserts her eggs through 

 the cement wall of our three Chalicodomae. 

 I know her under two names. When she 

 comes from the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles 

 or Walls, whose opulent larva saturates her 

 with food, she deserves by her large size the 

 name of Leucospis gigas, which Fabricius be- 

 stows upon her; when she comes from the 

 Chalicodoma of the Sheds, she deserves no 

 more than the name of L. grandis, which is 

 all that Klug grants her. With a smaller 

 ration " the giant " is to some degree di- 

 minished and becomes no more than " the 

 large." When she comes from the Chali- 

 codoma of the Shrubs, she is smaller still; 

 and, if some nomenclator were to seek to 

 describe her, she would no longer deserve 

 to be called more than middling. From di- 

 mension 2 she has descended to dimension i 

 without ceasing to be the same insect, despite 

 the change of diet; and at the same time 

 both sexes are present in the three nurs- 

 lings, despite the variation in the quantity of 

 victuals. 



ble-divellers and Others: chaps, ii. and iii. — Translator's 

 Note. 



1 Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. xi. — Translator's Note. 



238 



