The Hunting Wasps 



probable. It is not in August, at the hottest 

 time of year, that an animal is overcome with 

 its winter drowsiness. Nor is it any use to 

 suggest the want of food, of honeyed juices 

 sucked from the flowers. The September 

 showers are at hand; and vegetation, sus- 

 pended for a moment by the heat of the dog- 

 days, will gather fresh vigour and cover the 

 fields with blossoms almost as diverse as 

 those of spring. This season of revelry for 

 the majority of Wasps and Bees could never 

 be a period of torpor for the Hairy Am- 

 mophila. 



And then have we any right to imagine 

 that the heights of Ventoux, swept by the 

 gusts of the mistral, which sometimes up- 

 roots both beech and pine; that crests where 

 the north-wind sends the snow-flakes whirling 

 for six months in succession; that peaks 

 wrapped for the best part of the year in cold 

 cloud-fogs can be adopted as a winter refuge 

 by an insect enamoured of the sun? One 

 might as well suggest that it should hibernate 

 among the ice-floes of the North Cape. No, 

 it is not here that the Hairy Ammophila can 

 spend the cold season. The group which I 

 observed was only passing through. At the 

 first hint of rain, a hint that escaped us but 

 240 



