With the Hylotoma-larva the Wasps did not use the sting, which would have so promptly put an end to all resistance. Perhaps they deemed the wretched grub unworthy of ceremonial death. The expeditious method of the poisoned dagger appears to be reserved for great occasions. Thus perished the Bumble-bee and the Polistes; thus will perish a larva of the Scalary Saperda, [69] an imposing grub extracted that moment from under the bark of a dead cherry-tree. I fling it on one of the combs. The Wasps are greatly excited by the fall of the monster, which goes into vigorous contortions. Five or six at a time assail it, first quickly biting into it and then pricking it with their stings. In a couple of minutes the grub, stabbed through and through, no longer stirs. As for carrying the huge dead body out of the nest, that is another matter; it is too heavy, much too heavy. What will the Wasps do? Unable to shift the grub, they eat it where it lies, or rather they drain it dry, drinking its blood. An hour later, flaccid now and greatly diminished in weight, the cumbrous corpse is dragged outside the walls. The rest of my notes would only repeat the same results. If he keep a certain distance, the stranger is tolerated, no matter what his race, his costume or his habits. If he pass near a Wasp, a threat warns him and puts him to flight. If he go to the pool of honey, when the refectory is already occupied by the Wasps, it seldom happens that the daring intruder is not molested and driven from the banquet. So far, blows of no great gravity suffice. But, if he have the misfortune to enter the actual nest, he comes to a bad end, pierced by the Wasps’ stings or at least disembowelled by the fangs of their mandibles. His corpse goes to join the other refuse in the basement. Protected with this fierce vigilance against the invasion of all intruders and deliciously spoon-fed on honey, on that excellent honey which causes Fly-meat to be forgotten, the larvæ prosper greatly in my breeding-cage, though of course not all. In the Wasps’-nest, as everywhere, there are weaklings who are cut down before their time. I see these puny sufferers refuse their food and slowly pine away. The nurses perceive it even more clearly. They bend their heads over the sorely-tried grub, they sound it with their antennæ, they pronounce it incurable. Then the creature at point of death, often of a sickly brown, is torn ruthlessly from its cell and dragged outside the nest. In the brutal commonwealth of the Wasps, the invalid is merely a clout, to be got rid of as quickly as possible, for fear of contagion.