HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



197 



All these were nothing to the little wasp so intent on 

 its own labours in the warm bright sunshine, and so 

 satisfied with the selection of the spot and the security 

 provided for its immature young. To a small body 

 of water at some little distance it betakes itself, and 

 after imbibing some with a drawing-in and extension 

 of the abdomen, as though it required effort, it seeks 

 some fine dry earth on the border among the flowers, 

 which it moistens with the fluid it has imbibed, and 

 with its strong jaws works into a kind of cement of 



until evening, when it returned and utilized the cell 

 for a demesne during the night, resting with its head 

 upwards. The next morning another egg is laid, 

 and more caterpillars (the number varying from [six 

 to nine) are brought and deposited as in the first 

 cell. The caterpillars are always stung, sufficiently, 

 not to kill, but to send into a state of coma, when 

 they lose all power of voluntary motion, without pain 

 or sense to feel injury. 



Nature in the instance of this wasp seems to exercise 



Fig. 118. — Clay nest of Odynerjts jiturareits in the hollow formed by the drapery folds of a statue (magnified). 



Fig. 119. — a, section of a cell from nest showing 

 egg when first laid ; b, section of a cell showing 

 caterpillars arranged round the egg. 



Fig. 120. — Larva of Odymrus 

 murareus. 



Fig. 121. — Pupa of Ody/ierus 

 murareus. 



the same quality as the cell is made of. It makes 

 incessant journeys now to the water, and then to the 

 earth, and back again to its cell, which it gradually 

 closes over, sealing the caterpillars and egg quite 

 close. By degrees this cover is moulded into a 

 hollow, forming the base of a succeeding cell, and 

 the sides are slowly raised by many small particles 

 until another cell is constructed, ready for an egg 

 and caterpillars for the wasp's young, in continuation 

 of the one last completed. The wasp always finished 

 a cell about midday, and was not to be seen again 



a kindlier means of utilizing one life for the food of 

 another, than she does in many instances, as in the 

 case of the butcher-bird impaling insects on the 

 thorns in- the wayside hedge, where they slowly die a 

 painful death. After constructing nine to ten cells, 

 the wasp leaves for ever the young it will never 

 know, in the habitation that has cost it so much 

 labour. The July sun, and the summer rain, pour 

 on to this clay home of the wasp, and at night the 

 dew, with a silent footfall, covers it with beads of 

 moisture, yet the growing life within this simple 



