A Furious Battle. 319 
representative features of the four quarters: an artist 
might design an emblematic study upon it, say for a 
tesselated pavement. 
In the early summer the lime-trees flower, and are 
then visited by busy swarms of bees, causing a hum 
in the air overhead. So, in like manner, on October 
16, I passed under an old oak almost hidden by ivy, 
and paused to listen to the loud hum made by the 
insects that came to the ivy blossom. They were 
principally bees, wasps, large black flies, and tiny 
gnats. Suddenly a wasp attacked one of the largest 
of the flies, and the two fell down on a bush, where 
they brought up on a leaf. 
The fly was very large, of a square build, and 
wrestled with its assailant vigorously. But in a few 
seconds, the wasp, getting the mastery, brought his 
tail round, and stung the fly twice, thrice, in rapid 
succession in the abdomen, and then held tight. 
Almost immediately the fly grew feeble; then the 
wasp snipped off its proboscis, and next the legs. 
Then he seized the fly just behind the head, and bit 
off pieces of the wings ; these, the proboscis, and the 
legs dropped to the ground. The fell purpose of the 
wasp is not easily described; he stung and snipped 
and bit and reduced his prey to utter helplessness, 
without the pause of a second. 
So eager was he that while cutting the wings to 
pieces he fell off the leaf, but clung tight te the fly, 
and, although it was nearly as big as himself, carried 
