The Mason-Wasps

A wasp-like garb of black and yellow; a slender, graceful figure; wings that are not spread flat when resting, but are folded lengthwise in two; the abdomen a sort of chemist’s retort, swelling into a gourd and fastened to the thorax by a long neck which first distends into a pear and then shrinks to a thread; a leisurely and silent flight; lonely habits. There we have a summary sketch of the Eumenes. My part of the country possesses two species: the larger E. Amadei, Lep., measures nearly an inch in length; the other, E. pomiformis, Fabr., is a reduction of the first to half the scale.

Similar in form and colouring, both possess a like talent for architecture; and this talent is expressed in a work of the highest perfection, which charms the most untutored eye. Their dwelling is a masterpiece. And yet the Eumenes follow the profession of arms, which is unfavourable to artistic effort: they stab and sting a victim; they pillage and plunder. They are predatory Wasps, victualling their larvæ with caterpillars. It must be interesting to compare their habits with those of the operator on the Grey Worm. Though the quarry—caterpillars in either case—remain the same, instinct, which is liable to vary with the species, may have fresh glimpses in store for us. Besides, the edifice built by the Eumenes in itself deserves inspection.

The Hunting Wasps whose story we have told hitherto are wonderfully well-versed in the art of wielding the lancet; they astound us with their surgical methods, which they seem to have learnt from some physiologist who allows nothing to escape him; but these skilful slayers have no merit as builders of dwelling-houses. What is their home, in point of fact? An underground passage, with a cell at the end of it; a gallery, an excavation, a shapeless cave. It is miner’s work, navvy’s work: vigorous sometimes, artistic never. They use the pick for loosening, the crowbar for shifting, the rake for extracting the materials, but never the trowel for laying. Now in the Eumenes we see real masons, who build their houses bit by bit with stone and mortar and run them up in the open, either on firm rock or on the shaky support of a bough. Hunting alternates with architecture; the insect is a Nimrod or a Vitruvius by turns.