rva is brawny enough not
to dread the movements of the caterpillars' bodies. Besides, the
caterpillars, mortified by fasting and weakened by a prolonged torpor,
become more and more incapable of defence. The perils of the tender
babe are succeeded by the security of the lusty stripling; and the
grub, henceforth scorning its sheathed lift, lets itself drop upon the
game that remains. And thus the banquet ends in normal fashion.

That is what I saw in the nests of both species of the Eumenes and that
is what I showed to friends who were even more surprised than I by
these ingenious tactics. The egg hanging from the ceiling, at a
distance from the provisions, has naught to fear from the caterpillars,
which flounder about below. The new-hatched larva, whose suspensory
cord is lengthened by the sheath of the egg, reaches the game and takes
a first cautious bite at it. If there be danger, it climbs back to the
ceiling by retreating inside the scabbard. This explains the failure of
my earlier attempts. Not knowing of the safety-thread, so slender and
so easily broken, I gathered at one time the egg, at another the young
larva, after my inroads at the top had caused them to fall into the
middle of the live victuals. Neither of them was able to thrive when
brought into direct contact with the dangerous game.

If any one of my readers, to whom I appealed just now, has thought out
something better than the Eumenes' invention, I beg that he will let me
know: there is a curious parallel to be drawn between the inspirations
of reason and the inspirations of instinct.

CHAPTER 12. THE OSMIAE.

THEIR HABITS.

February has its sunny days, heralding spring, to which rude winter
will reluctantly yield place. In snug corners, among the rocks, the
great spurge of our district, the characias of the Greeks, the jusclo
of the Provencals, begins to lift its drooping inflorescence and
discreetly opens a few sombre flowers. Here the first midges of the
year will come to slake their thirst. By the time that the tip of the
stalks reaches the perpendicular, the worst of the cold weather will be
over.

Another eager one, the almond-tree, risking the loss of its fruit,
hastens to echo these preludes to the festival of the sun, preludes
which are too often treacherous. A few days of soft skies and it
becomes a glorious dome of white flowers, each twinkling with a roseate
eye. The country, which still lacks green, seems dotted everywhere with