The Hunting Wasps 



fanation of a dying creature, whose enemy 

 squeezes its belly to empty it and feast on 

 the contents, has something so hideous about 

 it that I should denounce the Philanthus as 

 a brutal murderess, if animals were capable 

 of wrongdoing. At the moment of some 

 such horrible banquet, I have seen the Wasp, 

 with her prey, seized by the Mantis: the 

 bandit was rifled by another bandit. And 

 here is an awful detail: while the Mantis held 

 her transfixed under the points of the double 

 saw and was already munching her belly, the 

 Wasp continued to lick the honey of her Bee, 

 unable to relinquish the delicious food even 

 amid the terrors of death. Let us hasten to 

 cast a veil over these horrors. 



We will return to the Sphex, with whose 

 burrow we must make ourselves acquainted 

 before we go further. This burrow is a hole 

 made in fine sand, or rather in a sort of dust 

 at the bottom of a natural shelter. Its en- 

 trance-passage is very short, merely an inch 

 or two, without a bend, and leads to a single, 

 roomy, oval chamber. The whole thing is a 

 rough den, hastily dug out, rather than a 

 leisurely and artistically excavated dwelling. 

 I have explained that the reason for this sim- 

 plicity is that the game is captured first and 

 192 



