POISON-FANG AND STILETTO 163 



Vespa vulgaris does not disdain it, but will 

 invade the kitchen, larder, or butcher's shop, 

 and, with her strong scissor-like mandibles, cut 

 tiny scraps from the meat and fly off with the 

 spoil. More often, however, V. vulgaris provides 

 her larvae with animal food in the form of 

 dipterous insects which she pursues and kills 

 with wonderful skill and ferocity. 



On a warm, sunny day in late summer the 

 little huntress may often be seen at work. 

 Watch some sweet-scented flowering shrub, or 

 clump of flowers over which the flies are hover- 

 ing with drowsy murmur. Suddenly a wasp in 

 search of game appears upon the scene, and 

 darts with surprising swiftness upon a fly almost 

 as large as herself; with a frightened " buzz " 

 the insect flies off pursued by the wasp in much 

 the same way as a hawk chases a small bird. 

 Should the fly be finally captured, huntress and 

 hunted fall together to the ground, where a 

 furious struggle ensues, until the fly is at length 

 dispatched by the repeated stab of the wasp's 

 sting. 



Having killed her quarry, the wasp generally 

 proceeds to tear off the wings and cut up the fly 

 with her strong, sharp mandibles, keeping only 

 the softer and more nutritious parts, which she 

 carries off between her feet. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, the fly is taken intact to the nest, where 

 the wasp makes it into a kind of fly paste before 

 distributing it to the hungry larvae. 



Interesting as are the ways of the common 

 wasp, the habits of the solitary wasps, or fossorial 

 Hymenoptera, are even more remarkable and 



