108 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
provoked with impunity. Compared with the bees, they 
may be considered as a horde of thieves and brigands ; 
and the latter as peaceful, honest, and industrious sub- 
jects, whose persons are attacked and property plun- 
dered by them. Yet, with all this love of pillage and 
other bad propensities, they are not altogether disagree- 
able or unamiable; they are brisk and lively; they do 
not usually attack unprovoked; and their object in 
plundering us is not purely selfish, but is principally to 
provide for the support of the young brood of their 
colonies. 
The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other 
social Hymenoptera, consist of females, males, and work- 
ers. ‘The females may be considered as of two sorts: 
first, the females by way of eminence, much larger than 
any other individuals of the community, equalling six of 
the workers (from which in other respects they do not 
materially differ) in weight, and laying both male and 
female egos. Then the small females, not bigger than the 
workers, and laying only male eggs. This last descrip- 
tion of females, which are found also both amongst the 
humble-bees and hive-bees, were first observed amongst 
the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of Huber’s?. The 
large females are produced later than the workers, and 
make their appearance in the following spying; and who- 
ever destroys one of them at that time, destroys an en- 
tire colony, of which she would be the founder. ‘They 
are more worthy of praise than the queen-bee; since 
upon the latter, from her very first appearance in the 
perfect state, no labour devolves,—all her wants being 
* Huber, Nouv. Observ. ii. 443. 
