AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 373 



or no honey from flowers, they are constantly engaged 

 in predatory expeditions. One party will attack a hive 

 of bees, a grocer's sugar hogshead, or other saccharine 

 repository ; or, if these fail, the juice of a ripe peach or 

 pear. You will be less indignant than formerly at these 

 audacious robbers now you know that self is little con- 

 sidered in their attacks, and that your ravaged fruit has 

 supplied an exquisite banquet to the most tender grubs 

 of the nest, into whose extended mouths the successful 

 marauders, running with astonishing agility from one cell 

 to another, disgorge successively a small portion of their 

 booty in the same way that a bird supplies her young a . 

 Another party is charged with providing more substan- 

 tial aliment for the grubs of maturer growth. These wage 

 war upon bees, flies, and even the meat of a butcher's 

 stall, and joyfully return to the nest laden with the well- 

 filled bodies of the former, or pieces of the latter as 

 large as they can carry. This solid food they distribute 

 in like manner to the larger grubs, which may be seen 

 eagerly protruding their heads out of the cells to receive 

 the welcome meal. As wasps lay up no store of food, 

 these exertions are the task of every day during the sum- 

 mer, fresh broods of grubs constantly succeeding to those 

 which have become pupae or perfect insects ; and in au- 

 tumn, when the colony is augmented to 20 or 30,000, 

 and the grubs in proportion, the scene of bustle which 

 it presents may be readily conceived. 



Though such is the love of wasps for their young, that 

 if their nest be broken almost entirely in pieces they will 



a See Willughby in Rai. Hist, Ins. 251. and Reaum. 



