THE WASP. 



the females alone are permitted to feed their 

 young, and to nurse their rising progeny. 

 For this purpose the female waits with great 

 patience till the working-wasps have brought 

 in their provisions, which she takes from 

 them, and cuts into pieces. She then goes 

 with great composure from cell to cell, and 

 feeds every young one with her mouth. 

 When the young worms have come to a cer- 

 tain size they leave off eating, and begin to 

 spin a very fine silk, fixing their first end to 

 the entrance of the cell ; then turning their 

 heads, first on one side, then on the other, 

 they fix the thread to different parts, and thus 

 they make a sort of a door, which serves to 

 close upthe mouth of the cell. After this they 

 divest themselves of their skins after the usual 

 mode of transformation : the aurelia, by de- 

 grees, begins to emancipate itself from its 

 shell ; by little and little, it thrusts out its legs 

 and wings, and insensibly acquires the colour 

 and shape of its parent. 



The wasp thus formed, and prepared for 

 depredation, becomes a bold, troublesome, 

 and dangerous insect : there are no dangers 

 which it will not encounter in pursuit of its 

 prey, and nothingseems to satiate its gluttony. 

 Though it can gather no honey of its own, no 

 animal is more fond of sweets. For this pur- 

 pose it will pursue the bee and the humble- 

 bee,destroy them with itssting.and then plun- 

 der them of their honey-bag, with which it 

 flies triumphantly loaded to its nest to regale 

 its young. Wasps are ever fond of making 

 their nests in the neighbourhood of bees, 

 merely to have an opportunity of robbing 

 their hives, and feasting on the spoil. Yet 

 the bees are not found always patiently sub- 

 missive to their tyranny, but fierce battles 

 are sometimes seen to ensue, in which the 

 bees make up by conduct and numbers what 

 they want in personal prowess. When there 

 is no honey to be had, they seek for the best 

 and sweetest fruits, and they are never mis- 

 taken in their choice. From the garden they 

 fly to the city, to the grocers' shops, and 

 butchers' shambles. They will sometimes 

 carry off bits of flesh half as big as them- 

 selves, with which they fly to their nest for 

 the nourishment of their brood. Those who 

 cannot drive them away, lay for them a piece 

 of ox's liver, which being without fibres, they 



wo. 69 & 70. 



prefer to other flesh ; and whenever they are 

 found, all other flies are seen to desert the 

 place immediately. Such is the dread with 

 which these little animals impress all the rest 

 of the insect tribes, which they seize and de- 

 vour without mercy, that they vanish at their 

 approach. Wherever they fly, like the eagle 

 or the falcon, they form a desert in the air 

 around them. In this manner the summer is 

 passed in plundering the neighbourhood, and 

 rearing up their young: every day adds to 

 their numbers; and from their strength, 

 agility, and indiscriminate appetite for every 

 kind of provision, were they as long-lived as 

 the bee, they would soon swarm upon the 

 face of nature, and become the most noxious 

 plague of man; but providentially their lives 

 are measured to their mischief, and they live 

 but a single season. 



While the summer heats continue, they are 

 bold, voracious, and enterprising; but as the 

 sun withdraws, it seems to rob them of their 

 courage and activity. In proportion as the 

 cold increases, they are seen to become more 

 domestic; they seldom leave the nest, they 

 make but short adventures from home, they 

 flutter about in the noon-day heats, and soon 

 after return cliilled and feeble. 



As their calamities increase, new passions 

 soon begin to take place ; the care for pos- 

 terity no longer continues; and as the parents 

 are no longer able to provide their growing 

 progeny a supply, they take the barbarous 

 resolution of sacrificing them all to the neces- 

 sity of the times. In this mariner, like a gar- 

 rison upon short allowance, all the useless 

 hands are destroyed; the young worms, 

 which a little before they fed and protected 

 with so much assiduity, are now butchered, 

 and dragged from their cells. As the cold 

 increases, they no longer find sufficient warmth 

 in their nests, which grow hateful to thr-m, 

 and they fly to seek it in the corners of houses, 

 and places that receive an artificial heat. 

 But the winter is still insupportable; and, 

 before the new year begins, they wither and 

 die ; the working-wasps first, the males soon 

 following, and many of the females suffer in 

 the general calamity. In every nest, however, 

 one or two females survive the winter, and 

 having been impregnated by the male during 

 the preceding season, she begins in spring to 

 5U 



