128 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



nest is really a family founded by a single female which has 

 hibernated. In spring she selects a suitable locality and lays the 

 foundation of the nest, depositing an egg in each of the first few 

 -cells. The grubs hatch out quickly, and then the female devotes 

 all her attention to feeding them, bringing at first sugary material 

 which she collects from flowers or from any store she is able to rob. 

 When they are a little older, she chases and captures living insects 

 of different kinds, breaks their bodies into a pulp by her strong 

 jaws and supplies this animal diet to the growing young. The 

 first set of young mature into workers, which are really imperfect 

 females, and these at once devote all their time to improving and 

 enlarging the nest, and to foraging for and tending the successive 

 series of eggs which the queen continues to lay. The fossorial 

 wasps are all carnivorous and hunt and collect insects, caterpillars 

 and spiders for the use of their grubs. The females do all the work 

 and never live in communities, but make separate cells of clay, 

 burrows in soft soil or tunnels in the tissues of plants, in which 

 to place their eggs and store of victims. The Pompilidae prey 

 specially on spiders, and often attack large and poisonous species. 

 They watch for them at the entrance of the holes in which the 

 spiders lurk, and if they have an opportunity, pull one out by the 

 leg, at once sting it between the poison fangs so as to paralyse these 

 dangerous weapons, and then sting again in the soft place where 

 the abdomen joins the front part of the body, so reducing the spider 

 to immobility. The wasp then makes a burrow and deposits in it 

 the helpless spider and an egg. 



In the communities of ants, which, unlike those of wasps and 

 bees, last for a number of years, there are usually more than one 

 queen or fertile female. The eggs hatch out into little grubs, which 

 are fed and tended by the workers with a care and intelligence far 

 surpassing the qualities displayed by any other invertebrate 

 animals. The grubs are moved from place to place in the nest 

 according to temperature or moisture, are kept clean, and are 

 frequently carried above ground for an airing. 



Beetles as a rule lay a considerable number of eggs, and do 

 no more for the next generation than choose a suitable place for 

 the larvae. In the dung-beetles special provision is sometimes 

 made. The common scarabaeus beetle of south Europe buries dung 

 for its own consumption, but also accumulates a large mass in a 

 subterranean chamber, in the middle of which the egg is deposited. 

 In other dung-beetles, each female lays only three or four eggs in 



