290 The Hunting Wasps 



With the Bembex it is quite another matter. 

 The mother is constantly returning mdoors 

 during the fortnight which it takes to rear her 

 grubs ; she knows that her offspring is Uving 

 in the company of a number of intruders, who 

 appropriate the best part of the food ; each 

 time that she brings provisions to her larva, 

 she touches and feels at the bottom of the 

 cavity those hungry guests who, far from 

 contenting themselves with the remnants, seize 

 upon the pick of the victuals ; she must per- 

 ceive, however limited her arithmetical faculties, 

 that twelve are more than one ; besides, the 

 consumption of food, which is out of all pro- 

 portion to her hunting powers, would tell her ; 

 and yet, instead of taking those presumptuous 

 aliens by the skin of the belly and chucking 

 them out of doors, she placidly tolerates them. 



Tolerates them, did I say ? Why, she feeds 

 them, she brings them provisions, having 

 perhaps for those intruders the same affection 

 as for her own larva ! It is a new version of the 

 story of the Cuckoo, but with even more 

 singular circumstances. The theory that the 

 Cuckoo, almost the size of the Sparrow-hawk 

 and wearing the same dress, inspires enough 

 respect to enable her to introduce her ^g% 

 with impunity into the feeble Warbler's nest, 

 and that the latter, in her turn, perhaps over- 



