ISO 



FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



Male 



and peoples it with thousands of citizens, but also 



feeds and tends it with her 

 own overworked mouth 

 I cannot honestly say her 

 hands till her maiden 

 daughters are of age to 

 help her. Women's-rights 

 women may be proud of 

 the example thus set them. 

 Nature nowhere presents 

 us, indeed, with a finer 

 specimen of feminine in- 

 dustry and maternal devo- 

 tion to duty than in the 

 case of these courageous 

 and pugnacious insects. 



But I will not now en- 

 large upon the features of 

 these three faithful por- 

 traits, " expressed after the 

 life," as Elizabethan writers 

 put it, because as we pro- 

 ceed I shall have to call 

 attention in greater detail 

 to the meaning of the 

 various parts of the body. 

 It must suffice for the 

 moment to direct your 

 notice here to that very 

 familiar portion of the 

 wasp's anatomy, the sting, 

 or ovipositor, possessed by the females, both per- 



Queen. 



Worker. 



NO. I. FAMILY PORTRAITS 

 OF THE WASPS. 



