INGENIOUS CRUELTY 



Alluding to the wasps, Mr. Hudson says : l "These insects, with 

 a refinement of cruelty, prefer not to kill their victims out- 

 right, but merely to maim them, then house them in cells 

 where the grubs can vivisect them at leisure. This is one of 

 those revolting facts the fastidious soul cannot escape from 

 in warm climates; for in and out of open windows and 

 doors, all day long, all the summer through, comes the busy 

 beautiful mason wasp. A long body, wonderfully slim at 

 the waist, bright yellow legs and thorax, and a dark crimson 

 abdomen what object can be prettier to look at ? But in 

 her life this wasp is not beautiful. At home in summer 

 they were the pests of my life, for nothing would serve to 

 keep them out. One day, while we were seated at dinner, 

 a clay nest, which a wasp had succeeded in completing 

 unobserved, detached itself from the ceiling and fell with 

 a crash on to the table, where it was shattered to pieces, 

 scattering a shower of green half-living spiders round it. 

 I shall never forget the feeling of intense repugnance I 

 experienced at the sight, coupled with detestation of the 

 pretty but cruel little architect.*" 



When the series of cells is complete, the Pelopceus coats 

 them roughly all over with a layer of dirt so that the nest 

 has the appearance of a lump of mud which has been thrown 

 against the wall. The happy idea occurred to Fabre of 

 removing a nest before it was quite finished, and putting 

 it in his pocket in order to see what the insect would do. 

 In the place where the structure had been there was no 

 longer anything but the blank wall and a thin, broken rim 

 of earth where the edges of the patch of mud had adhered. 

 After a while the Pelopceus returned with its load of clay, 

 alighted on the same spot without any apparent hesitation, 

 laid down its burden, and began to spread out the mud just 

 1 The Naturalist in La Plata. 

 '37 



