CLASSIFICATION OF THE SPECIES. 33 
Now it is not a very agreeable occupation thus 
to turn over a heap of half-dead wasps, nor is it alto- 
gether safe, unless we look carefully about the while, — 
and, applying to the business in hand the advice of a 
moralist* on another subject, “eye well those heroes 
who have held their heads above water, who have 
touched pitch and not been defiled.” But in a little 
while we may satisfy ourselves, from the study of 
such a miscellaneous, unsavoury collection, that 
under the name of wasps are included individuals of 
very different sizes and forms. 
We must not, however, invest every slight devia- 
tion from the normal standard, whether of size or 
colour, with specific importance. For the Hymen- 
optera are very liable to vary in size, more so than 
any other Order of insects. For instance, in the 
same wasp’s-nest we may often trace a regular 
gradation of size from the queen-mother herself to 
_the little cross wasps with their tattered wings which 
seem, like little old women, to have shrunk up with 
advancing days. And the same caution about not 
exalting slight differences into specific distinctions— 
reversing the terms of the proverb—must be observed 
with regard to the varieties of colour and marking. 
We cannot indeed observe too closely, but there is 
great danger of classifying too minutely. For, be- 
sides the broader shades of colour which distinguish 
a fair wasp from a dark beauty, the actual markings 
may differ in the inhabitants of the same nest within 
certain limits; and more widely still in specimens 
from different swarms of the same species. Like 
Vulcan’s sea nymphs, 
* Sir T. Browne, ‘ Christian Morals,’ I, § 12. 
D 
