106 



My cage becomes emptier day by day, notwithstanding 

 the mildness of the room, and notwithstanding the saucer 

 of honey at which the able-bodied come to sip. At Christmas 

 I have only a dozen females left. On the 6th of January the 

 last of them perishes. 



Whence arises this mortality, which mows down the whole 

 of my Wasps ? They have not suffered from famine : they 

 have not suffered from cold : they have not suffered from 

 home-sickness. Then what have they died of ? 



We must not blame their captivity. The same thing 

 happens in the open country. Various nests I have inspected 

 at the end of December all show the same condition. The 

 vast majority of Wasps must die, apparently, not by accident, 

 nor illness, nor the inclemency of the season, but by an in- 

 evitable destiny, which destroys them as energetically as it 

 brings them into life. And it is well for us that it is so. One 

 female Wasp is enough to found a city of thirty thousand 

 inhabitants. If all were to survive, what a scourge they 

 would be ! The Wasps would tyrannise over the country- 

 side. 



In the end the nest itself perishes. A certain Cater- 

 pillar which later on becomes a mean-looking Moth ; a tiny 

 reddish Beetle; and a scaly grub clad in gold velvet, are 

 the creatures that demolish it. They gnaw the floors of the 

 various storeys, and crumble the whole dwelling. A few 

 pinches of dust, a few shreds of brown paper are all that 

 remain, by the return of spring, of the Wasps' city and its 

 thirty thousand inhabitants. 



