A week goes by. The visits to the refectory, though brief, seem to speak of a certain well-being; nevertheless, without apparent cause, mortality now makes a sudden appearance. A neuter is resting in the sun, motionless, on the side of a comb. There is nothing about it to denote ill-health. Suddenly it drops down, falls on its back, moves its abdomen for a moment, kicks its legs about and all is over: it is dead. As for the females, they too give me cause for alarm. I surprise one as she is crawling out of the nest. Lying on her back, she stretches her limbs, twitches her abdomen and, after a few convulsions, lies absolutely still. I believe her dead. She is nothing of the sort. After a sun-bath, a sovran cordial, she recovers her legs again and goes back to the stack of combs. Yet the resuscitated Wasp is not saved. During the afternoon she is seized with a second fit, which this time leaves her really lifeless, with her legs in the air. Death, if it be only the death of a Wasp, is always a solemn thing, worthy of our meditation. Day by day, with a curiosity not devoid of emotion, I watch the end of my insects. One detail especially strikes me: the neuters succumb suddenly. They come to the surface, slip down, fall on their backs and rise no more, as though they were struck by lightning. They have had their day; they are slain by age, that inexorable toxin. Even so does a piece of clockwork become inert when its mainspring has unwound its last spiral. But the females, the last-born of the community, far from being overcome by decrepitude, are, on the contrary, just entering upon life. They have the vigour of youth; and so, when the winter sickness seizes them, they are capable of a certain resistance, whereas the old workers perish suddenly. In the same way, the males, so long as their part is not played out, resist the cold fairly well. My cage contains a few, always nimble and alert. I see them making advances to their companions, without greatly insisting. They are repulsed with a friendly push of the leg. The time is past for the raptures of the pairing. Those lingerers have let the right moment slip; they will die useless. The females whose end is near are easily distinguished from the others by the disorder of their appearance. Their backs are dusty. Those who are hale and hearty, once they have taken their meal on the brim of the saucer of honey, settle in the sun and dust themselves without ceasing. There is an incessant brushing of the wings and abdomen, with gentle, sensitive extensions of the hind-legs; the fore-legs repeatedly stroke the head and the thorax. Thus the black-and-yellow costume is kept perfectly glossy. Those who are ailing, careless of cleanliness, stand motionless in the sun or wander languidly about. They no longer brush their clothes.