The Hunting Wasps 



this method of rearing grubs on Fly-soup. 

 The subject of my experiment was a nest of 

 Polistes gallica, the Wasp who fastens her 

 little rosette of brown-paper cells to the roots 

 of a shrub. My kitchen-table was a flat piece 

 of marble on which I crushed the Fly-pap 

 after cleaning the heads of game, that is to 

 say, after removing the parts that were too 

 tough, the wings and legs ; lastly, the feeding- 

 spoon was a fine straw, at the tip of which the 

 dish was served, from cell to cell, to each 

 nurseling, which opened its mandibles just as 

 the young birds in the nest might do. I used 

 to go to work in exactly the same way and 

 succeeded no better when bringing up broods 

 of Sparrows, that joy of my childhood. All 

 went well as long as my patience did not fail 

 me, tried as it was by the cares of so finikin 

 and absorbing an education. 



The obscurity of the enigma gives way to 

 the full light of truth thanks to the following 

 observation, made with all the deliberateness 

 which strict precision calls for. In the early 

 days of October, two large clumps of asters 

 in blossom outside the door of my study be- 

 came the meeting-place of a host of insects, 

 among which the Hive-bee and an Eristalis- 

 fly (Eristalis tenax) predominate. A gentle 

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