A WASP IN MARCH. 89 



the honied perfume which fills the air. Yet, truly, these are 

 no plunderers ; they are the labourers of the hive. We ask 

 your pardon, little types and patterns of industry, and are right 

 glad to see you on the wing. Load your thigh-panniers as 

 you please with golden treasure, you are no pilferers, for you 

 take without despoiling, and you rob for us. 



But stay, what have we here ? an idler among labourers ! a 

 highwayman among travellers ! a Wasp among Bees ! A 

 Wasp in March ! Yes, truly, and a Wasp of Wasps ; a very 

 Robin Hood of plunderers, in comparison with whom the last 

 of his pilfering fraternity, seen in autumn on the last peach, 

 was but a Little John indeed. Let us watch his proceedings. 

 Is he going, a la coutume, to attack the Bees, or, contrary 

 to custom, the flowers only ? Neither ; for scornfully passing 

 over both, he has alighted on this old post beside the willow, 

 and there he stays; by turns walking, and standing, and 

 shaking his wings. Now, he seems to be engaged about 

 something, but what nobody can tell, unless he is biting and 

 gnawing the wood for very idleness ; or perhaps (waspish 

 fellow as he is), for very ill-humour at seeing the Bees so 

 happy and so busy around him. 



There ! he has left the post, and flown down to the bank- 

 side ; and now, all at once, he has disappeared within a hole, 

 the hybernaculum, we fancy, of some field-mouse, into which 

 he has entered without even the common civility of asking 

 permission. What business is he after? some mischief or 

 another, that's certain, for whenever yet was Wasp or vagrant 

 intent on good ? always poking his nose, now into this cranny, 

 now into that, peering here and prying there. Well ! there's not 

 an atom of his great golden-winged body to be discerned 

 within the tunnel; so there's certainly no seeing what he is 

 about, and he will not tell us if we wait for his return ; besides, 

 a cloud has passed over the sun ; the Bees have all gone off, 

 some with panniers only half-loaded, as if expecting an April 



