Life Insurance for Wasps 



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LIFE insurance is an arrangement by 

 which the results of a person's labor 

 may be stored up for the benefit of 

 others who are to come after him. This is sup- 

 posed to be, and is, among men, a device of 

 modern and the most civilized society, but it 

 has been practiced in effect by certain animals 

 ever since they came to be what they are. 



The best examples of animal life insurers 

 are to be found among those wasps and bees 

 which are called " solitary," because they do 

 not live in companies, making combs or coopera- 

 tive nests in which the young are reared from 

 the egg and cared for until they are grown, 

 which is the custom of the " social " hymen- 

 opters. 



The solitary wasps, on the other hand, ar- 

 range single chambers of one sort or another 

 in which one egg is laid and provision is stored 



*$ 26 o 



