Packard] RELATIONS OF INSECTS TO MAN. 
75 
me at his leisure ; when he had withdrawn his sting of his 
own accord I irritated and placed him on the hand of a 
domestic, who was not expecting to be stung, hut the wound 
did not cause him much pain. I then made the wasp sting 
me a second time, when I scarcely felt it. The poisonous 
fluid was nearly exhausted by the former experiments, and I 
could not induce the wasp to make a fourth wound. This 
experiment and others, which people will probably not care 
to repeat, have taught me that where the animals are undis¬ 
turbed the sting is never left in the wound. The sting is 
flexible, and is not driven straight in, but forms a curved or 
zigzag wound. If the insect is compelled to withdraw it 
suddenly, the friction is sufficient to retain the sting, which 
is somewhat hooked, and tears it off. On the other hand, if 
the animal is not disturbed, it withdraws the sting grad¬ 
ually. ” 
There is quite a difference in the poisonous qualities of 
different kinds of bees as well as wasps, and in the size and 
strength of the sting. We have been used to catching wild 
bees and wasps, without being stung, by firmly grasping the 
hind body or abdomen with our fingers, rendering the sting 
powerless. 
How useful the sting is to bees is shown in the honey bee, 
which uses it as a weapon of offence as well as defence, in 
stinging the caterpillars of the bee moth, which are careful 
to run concealed galleries in the wax to avoid their thrusts ; 
and in killing the drones. 
The term waspish is derived from the irritable nature of 
those insects, whose brusque and defiant manners are doubt¬ 
less in large part due to the consciousness that they are well 
armed. But in many wasps the sting is not only a weapon 
of defence, but of prime importance in maintaining the ex¬ 
istence of their young and consequently of the life of the 
species. We have spent hours watching a Sphex wasp 
(Sphex ichneumonea , Fig. 59), a large rust-red species 
11 
