HOSTILITIES OF ANIMALS. 221 



ers or nurses, they at once become barbarous step-mothers. 

 They are worse ; for they drag the young worms from their 

 cells, and carry them out of the nest. Being thus exposed to 

 the weather, and deprived of nourishment, every one of them 

 unavoidably perishes. This devastation is not, like that of 

 the honey-bees, confined to the male worms, tjere no worm, 

 of whatever denomination or sex, escapes the general and 

 undistinguished massacre. Besides exposing the worms to 

 the weather, the wasps kill them with their fangs. This fact 

 seems to be a violation of parental affection, one of the strong- 

 est principles in animal nature. But the intentions of Nature, 

 though they may often elude our researches, are never wrong. 

 What appears to us cruel and unnatural in this instinctive 

 devastation committed annually by the wasps, is, perhaps, an 

 act of the greatest mercy and compassion. Wasps are jiot, 

 like the honey-bees, endowed with the instinct of laying up a 

 store of provisions for winter subsistence. If not prematurely 

 destroyed by their parents, the young must necessarily die a 

 more cruel and lingering death, occasioned by hunger. Hence 

 this seemingly harsh conduct in the economy of wasps, instead 

 of affording an exception to the universal benevolence and wis- 

 dom of Nature, is, in reality, a merciful institution. Besides, 

 as the multiplication of wasps is prodigious, and as they are a 

 noxious race both to man and other animals, and especially 

 to many tribes of insects, if their increase were not checked 

 by such a dreadful carnage, their depredations, in a few years, 

 would annihilate other species, break the chain of nature, and 

 even prove destructive to man and the larger animals. 



The same instinctive slaughter, and probably for the same 

 reasons, is made by the hornets. Towards the end of Octo- 

 ber, all the worms and nymphs are dragged out of the nest 

 and killed. The neuters and males fall daily victims to the 

 cold ; so that, at the end of winter, a few fertile females only 

 remain to continue the species. 



According to the adopted plan, we shall finish this subject 

 with some observations which may have a tendency to recon 

 cile our minds to a system so destructive to individuals of 

 every species, that humanity, when not enlightened by a ray 

 of philosophy, is apt to revolt, and to brand Nature with 

 cruelty and oppression. Nature, it must be confessed, seems 

 almost indifferent to individuals, who perish every moment in 

 millions, without any apparent compunction. But, with regard 

 to species of every description, her uniform and uninterrupted 

 attention to the preservation and continuation of the great 

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