NATURE AND NATURAL HISTORY 



him in your hand and he makes believe sting. He 

 goes through with an exact series of movements 

 that ought to cause you to drop him as you would 

 a red-hot coal. He curves his body and thrusts out 

 the stinging end right and left most viciously, feel- 

 ing for a vulnerable place on your flesh and pro- 

 truding a sort of stinger-scabbard minus the stinger. 

 The sight of it all fairly makes one wince. Of course, 

 he does not know he is bluffing, there is no such 

 word in his dictionary, but he seems to think he is 

 punishing you severely. It is as if a soldier in battle 

 were firing blank cartridges without knowing it. 

 You may know the male wasp by his yellow face. 

 Beware of the black-faced ones. 



There is a good deal of make-believe in the play 

 of animals, but I recall nothing analogous to this bit 

 of serious acting of the stingless wasp. Certain bugs 

 will feign death and drop to the ground, but I know 

 of no mammal that will do so. To decoy their ene- 

 mies away from their nests and young, ground- 

 building birds will feign lameness and paralysis, but 

 this is an instinct that serves a different purpose 

 than that of the stingless sting of the male wasp. 



As Nature has dowered man with more and 

 higher gifts than she has any other creature, so it 

 may be said that she has, on the other hand, been 

 more cruel with him than with any other animal. 

 More enemies beset him, more hostile germs prey 



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