OF NATURAL HISTORY. 389 



are fingle. But, when the great flaughter of the males is commit- 

 ting, three or four neuters are not afhamed to attack a fingle fly. 



Every wafp's nefl:, about the beginning of Odober, exhibits a fm- 

 gular and a cruel fcene. At this feafon, the wafps ceafe to bring 

 nourifhment to their young. From affedionate mothers or nurles, 

 they at once become barbarous ftepmothers. They are worfe ; for 

 they drag the young worms from their cells, and carry them out of 

 the nefl. Being thus expofed to the weather, and deprived of nou- 

 rifhment, every one of them unavoidably perifhes. This devafla- 

 tion is not, like that of the honey-bees, confined to the male-worms. 

 Here no worm, of whatever denomination or fex, efcapes the gene- 

 ral and undiflinguifhing mafTacre. Befide expofing the worms to 

 the weather, the wafps kill them with their fangs. This fad feems 

 to be a violation of parental affedion, one of the firongeft principles 

 in animal nature. But the intentions of Nature, though they 

 may often elude our refearches, are never wrong. What appears 

 to us cruel and unnatural in this inflindive devaflation committed 

 annually by the wafps, is perhaps an ad of the greateft mercy and 

 compaffion. Wafps are not, like the honey-bees, endowed with the 

 inflind of laying up a flore of provifions for winter fubfiftence. If 

 not prematurely deftroyed by their parents, the young mufl necef- 

 farily die a more cruel and lingering death, occafioned by hunger. 

 Hence this feemingly harfh condud in the oeconomy of wafps, in- 

 ftead of affording an exception to the univerfal benevolence and wlf- 

 dom of Nature, is, in reality, a merciful inflitution. Belides, as the 

 multiplication of wafps is prodigious, and as they are a noxious race 

 both to man and other animals, and efpecially to many tribes of in- 

 feds, if their increafe were not checked by fuch a dreadful carnage, 

 their depredations, in a few years, would annihilate other fpecies, 

 break the chain of Nature, and even prove deftrudive to man and 



the larger animals* 



The 



