81'2 



A HISTORY 6F 



lay her eggs in a little hole of her own contri- 

 vance. This bundle of eggs, which is clus- 

 tered together like grapes, soon produces two 

 worms, which the female takes proper pre- 

 caution to defend and supply, and these, when 

 hatched, soon give assistance to the female, 

 who is employed in hatching two more ; these 

 also gathering strength, extricate themselves 

 out of the web that enclosed them, and become 

 likewise assistants to their mother ; fifteen 

 days after, two more make their appearance : 

 thus is the community every day increasing,, 

 while the female lays in every cell, first a 

 male and then a female. These soon after 

 become breeders in turn, till, from a single fe- 

 male, ten thousand wasps are seen produced 

 before the month of June. After the female 

 has thus produced her progeny, which arc 

 distributed in different districts, they assemble 

 from all parts in the middle of summer, and 

 provide for themselves the large and commo- 

 dious habitation which has been described 

 above. 



Such is the history of the social wasp ; but, 

 as among bees, so also among these insects, 

 there are various tribes that live in solitude ; 

 these lay their eggs in a hole for the purpose, 

 and the parent dies long before the birth of its 

 offspring. In the principal species of the 

 Solitary-Wasps, the insect is smaller than the 

 working-wasp of the social kind. The fila- 

 ment by which the corselet is joined to the 

 body, is longer and more distinctly seen, and 

 the whole colour of the insect is blacker 

 than in the ordinary kinds. But it is not 

 their figure, but the manners of this extra- 

 ordinary insect, that claim our principal re- 

 gard. 



From the end of May to the beginning; of 

 July this wasp is seen most diligently employ- 

 ed. The whole purpose of its life seems to be 

 in contriving and fitting up a commodious 

 apartment for its yonng one, which is not to 

 succeed it till the yc.r ensuing. For this end 

 it is employed, with umvearied assiduity, in 

 boring a hole into the finest earth some inches 

 deep, but not much wider than the diameter 

 of its own body. Tin's is but a gallery leading 

 to a wider apartment destined for the conve- 

 nient lodgment of its young. As it always 

 chooses a gravelly soil to work in, and where 

 the eanh is almost as hard as stone itself, the 

 digging and hollowing this apartment is an 



enterprise of ho small labour : for effecting its. 

 operations, this insect is furnished with two 

 teeth, which are strong and firm, but not suf- 

 ficiently hard to penetrate the substance through 

 which it is resolved to make its way. In or- 

 der therefore to soften that earth which it is 

 unable to pierce, it is furnished with a gummy 

 liquor, which it emits upon the place, and 

 which renders it more easily separable from 

 the rest, and the whole becoming a kind of 

 soft paste, is removed to the mouth of the 

 habitation. The animal's provision of liquor 

 in these operations is however soon exhaust- 

 ed; and it is then seen taking up water either 

 from some neighbouring flower or stream, in 

 order to supply the deficiency. 



At length, after much toil, a hole some in- 

 ches deep is formed, at the bottom of which is 

 a large cavity ; and to this no other hostile 

 insect would venture to find its way, from 

 the length and the narrowness of the de- 

 file through which it would be obliged topnss. 

 In this the solitary wasp lays its egg, which is 

 destined to continue the species; there the 

 nascent animal is to continue for about nine 

 months unattended and immured, and, at first 

 appearance, the most helpless insect of the 

 creation. But when we come to examine, 

 new wonders offer; no other insect can boast 

 so copiously luxurious a provision, or such 

 confirmed security. 



As soon as the mother wasp has deposited 

 her egg at the bottom of the hole, her next 

 care is to furnish it with a supply of provisions, 

 which may be off red to the young insect as 

 soon as ii leaves the egg. To this end she 

 procures a numb r of little green worms, gene- 

 rally from eight to twelve, and these are to 

 serve as foiwl for the young one the instant it 

 awakens into life. When this supply is regu- 

 larly arranged and laid in, the old one then, 

 with as much assiduity as it before worked out 

 its hole, now closes the mouth of the passage ; 

 and thus leaving its young ora ; immured in 

 perfect security, and in a copious supply of 

 animal food, she dies satisfied with having 

 provided for a future progeny. 



When the young one leaves the egg, it is 

 scarcely visible, and is seen immured among 

 a number of insects, infinitely larger than itself, 

 ranged in proper order around it, which, how- 

 ever, give it no manner of apprehension- 

 Whether the parent, when she laid in the in- 



