THE WASP. 
333 
penetrate the substance through which it is resolved to make 
its way: in order therefore to soften that earth which it is 
unable to pierce, it is furnished with a gummy liquor 
which it emits upon the place, and which renders it more 
easily separable from the rest, and the whole becoming a 
kind of soft paste, is removed to the mouth of the habita- 
tion. The animal’s provision of liquor in these operations 
is however soon exhausted; and it is then seen taking up 
water from some neighbouring dower or stream, in order to 
supply the deficiency. 
At length after much toil, a hole some inches deep is 
formed, at the bottom of which is a large cavity; and to 
this no oilier hostile insect would venture to find its way, 
from the length and the narrowness of the defile through 
which it would be obliged to pass. In this the solitary 
wasp lays its egg, which is destined to continue the spe- 
cies; there the nascent animal is to continue for above 
nine months, unattended and immured, and at first appear- 
ance the most helpless insect of the creation. But when we 
come to examine, new wonders offer; no other insect can 
boast so copiously luxuriant a provision, or such confirmed 
security. 
As soon as the mother-wasp has deposited her egg at the 
bottom of the hole, her next care is to furnish it with a sup- 
ply of provisions, which may be offered to the young insect 
as soon as it leaves the egg. To this end, she procures a 
number of little green worms, generally from eight to twelve 
and these are to serve as food for the young one the instant 
it awakens into life. When this supply is regularly arranged 
and laid in, the old one, then with as much assiduity as it 
before worked out its hole, now closes the mouth of the 
passage ; and thus leaving its young one immured in per- 
fect security, and with a copious supply of animal food, 
dies, satisfied with having provided for a future progeny. 
When the young one leaves the egg it is scarcely visible, 
and is seen immured among a number of insects, infinitely 
larger than itself, ranged in proper order around it, which, 
however, give it no manner of apprehension. Whether the 
parent, when she has laid in the insect provision, contrived 
to disable the worms from resistance, or whether they were 
at first incapable of any is not known. Certain it is, that the 
young glutton feasts upon the living spoil without any con- 
trol ; his ffame lies at his hand, and he devours one after 
the other as the calls of appetite incite him. The life of the 
young animal is therefore spent in the most luxurious man- 
ner, till its whole stock cf worms is exhausted, and the time 
