[Illustration: _Larva of Wood-boring Wasps._]
Sometimes the reader may have the opportunity, it may be, of finding out the nest of the wood-boring wasp, and he may in June or July, perhaps, succeed in discovering another instance of a larva in a happy state of plenty. The larva is sure to be found at the bottom, and above it will be piled a heap of insects for its food. What is remarkable about this store of food is, that the insects thus made prisoners are not dead, for they would, if so, soon become corrupted, and unfit for the diet of the larva; they are in a sort of half stupified condition, in all probability very like that induced by the late plan of breathing ether and other vapours to render persons insensible to pain, while surgically operated on. Since this plan has been introduced, we read in some of the newspapers--we may question with what truth--that the butchers in Albany (America,) give ether to the oxen before killing them, so as to make them insensible to the pain of the death-blow! But the wasps in question have for ages been in the habit of effecting the same end by stinging their captives, the poison not sufficing to kill them, nor yet permitting them to be actively alive.
The insects thus stored up for the larva cost the parent many a conflict in their capture. And here we may interest the reader by describing the exploits of a warrior wasp, abundant in the Isle of France. It is curious that in the Isle of France the common bee is not to be found as a native of the woods, while, in the Isle of Bourbon, it is very common, and furnishes an abundance of wax and honey. This is explained by supposing that the warriors of whom we are about to speak destroy the bees, and have thus prevented their multiplying in the island in question. Truly, like the banditti of whom we read in books, these wasps are splendidly attired, although not in the spoils of those they have robbed. Their head, chest, and body is of a resplendent lustre; now green, or, seen in another position, blue, and glistening with all the lustre of an exquisite varnish; their antennæ are black, their eyes of a brownish yellow, and their legs partly bronze-coloured, and partly of a beautiful violet. They are strong and swift of wing, and are possessed of a terrible lance, the thrusts of which even man cannot endure without far more pain and inflammation than attends an ordinary sting.