AMONG THE TOILERS 207 



poising for a moment as though to judge the 

 distance correctly, would dart at it. The fly was 

 generally too quick to be caught, but not always ; 

 and often wasp and fly fell together through the 

 leaves and rolled on the ground. Once within the 

 grasp of the wasp, there was no hope for the fly, 

 which was soon borne off. The nest of this wasp 

 was, of course, packed with these flies, in much 

 the same way that the cells of the mason were 

 filled with grubs. 



The bee and the wasp may be artistic toilers, 

 but the ant is the most laborious. In Britain we 

 do not witness the greatest triumphs of formic 

 genius ; we have not the " harvester " which sows 

 its own small fields, cultivates the grain, and reaps 

 and stores it ; we have not the " umbrella " ant which 

 protects itself from the sun by means of a leaf held 

 aloft ; but the slave-maker has been seen here, 

 with its soldiers capturing the lesser species 

 destined to be slaves, and its domestic arrange- 

 ments in full swing. I have not seen this species, 

 but I have seen the common wood-ant (F. rufa] 

 carrying off the black ant (F. fusca) alive in its 

 mandibles not singly, but scores of them with 



