374 THE INSECT WOELD. 



sentiug to their nurslings, very nearly in the same way 

 as birds give their beak full of food to their little ones. At 

 the end of three weeks the larvae cease to take food, and 

 begin to shut themselves up in their cells, the interior of which 

 they line with a coating of silk. In this they change their form, 

 and assume the appearance of the perfect insect, with 

 its six legs and its wings, but motionless, and con- 

 tracted together. A sort of bag keeps all the organs 

 swathed up together (Fig. 349). This pupa state lasts 

 for eight or nine days, at the end of which time the 



Fig. 349. Pupa ^ . . 



of the common i nsec t is fully developed ; it casts its skin, breaks the 

 door of its prison, and launches itself into the air. A 

 cell is no sooner abandoned than a worker visits, cleans it, and 

 puts it in a fit state to receive another egg. 



During the summer the female wasp remains constantly in the 

 nest, absorbed with family cares. She is occupied in laying eggs 

 and in feeding her progeny, with the actrve assistance of the 

 workers, or mules, as Reaumur and Charles de Geer call them, 

 because they are unfruitful. 



In the interior of the nests you generally find the most perfectly 

 good understanding existing, and the most perfect order, in spite of 

 the warlike instincts of these insects. It is only on rare occasions 

 that this domestic peace is disturbed by the quarrels of male with 

 male or worker with worker ; but these combats are not deadly. 

 Never, moreover, has one nest of wasps been known to declare 

 war against another for the purpose of robbing it. " The govern- 

 ment of wasps," says M. Victor Kendu, " explains very well the 

 gentleness of their public conduct. Amongst them there are no 

 despots ; no one either reigns or governs ; each one lives at 

 liberty in a free city, on the sole condition of never being a 

 burden to the state. They all act in concert, without privileges 

 or monopolies, under the influence of a common law the great 

 law of the public good, from which no one is exempted." * 



But this model republic is fatally doomed to early destruction. 

 At the approach of winter all the workers, as also all the males, 

 perish. Some pregnant females alone hold out against the cold, and 

 get through the winter, to propagate and perpetuate their species. 



*" L'Intelligence des Betes." In 18mo. Paris, 1864. 



