The Return to the Nest 321 



and the mother vanished in terror, making a 

 shrill whimpering noise with her wings. This 

 unnatural sight of the son biting his mother 

 and perhaps even trying to eat her is uncommon 

 and is brought about by circumstances which 

 the observer has not at his command ; but what 

 can always be witnessed is the Wasp's profound 

 indifference towards her offspring and the 

 brutal contempt with which she treats that irk- 

 some lump of rubbish, the grub. Once she has 

 raked out the end of the passage, which is the 

 work of a moment, the Bembex returns to her 

 favourite spot, the threshold, where she re- 

 sumes her useless search. As for the grub, it 

 continues to writhe and wriggle wherever its 

 mother has kicked it. It will die without the 

 mother's coming to its assistance, for she fails 

 to recognize it because she was unable to find 

 the customary passage. Go back to-morrow 

 and you shall see it lying in its trench, half 

 baked by the sun and already a prey to the 

 very Flies that were once its prey. 



Such is the concatenation of instinctive 

 actions, linked one to the other in an order 

 which the gravest circumstances are powerless 

 to disturb. What, after all, is the Bembex 

 looking for ? Her larva, obviously. But, to 

 get at that larva, she must enter the burrow ; 

 and, to enter that burrow, she must first of all 



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