The Mason-Wasps 



suitable freshness during the brief period of 

 nourishment. The numerous items com- 

 posing the ration, consumed in order, one 

 by one, are thus preserved for some days, 

 notwithstanding that they are corpses. 



Imagine, on the other hand, a single 

 item, big enough to furnish the whole 

 banquet; the conditions would become de- 

 testable. Nibbled here and there, the gen- 

 erous morsel, with its many wounds, would 

 become a fatal mess of putrescence long 

 before it was finished; it would poison the 

 grub with the serum resulting from the 

 wounds. A dish of this kind, single and 

 sumptuous, demands, as a preliminary, the 

 maintenance of organic life, together with 

 the abolition of all movement, in a word, 

 paralysis. It also demands, on the con- 

 sumer's part, a special art of eating, an art 

 that respects the more essential and attacks 

 the less essential by degrees, as the Scoliae 

 and Spheges l have shown us. For reasons 

 which escape me, the Pelopasus is unac- 

 quainted with the paralysers' art, nor does 

 her larva know how a bulky piece of game 

 may be consumed without danger. She is 

 therefore very happily inspired when she 



1 For the Scolia, cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: 

 chap. xi. ; for the Sphex, cf. The Hunting Wasps: chaps, 

 iv. to x. Translator's Note. 

 98 



