Still worse, perhaps, though very similar, is the fate which various insects—caterpillars, grasshoppers, etc.—as well as spiders, experience at the hands of several species of wasps. These wasps are not social, like the ones we are familiar with, and make no nest other than a cell in which to place their eggs, together with the nourishment which the young, when hatched, will require. This nourishment is the creatures aforesaid. In the best-known instance the female wasp first makes a long tunnel in the earth, with three or four separate chambers or cells at the end of it, in which she deposits her eggs. She then seizes an insect, which, if it is a grasshopper, or something equally active, struggles violently to escape, and being often as large as, or larger, than the wasp herself, the contest may be a long one. Invariably, however, the wasp—or _sphex_, to give her her generic name—is victorious. She could, indeed, sting at once, if she were so minded, but this she does not do. She reserves her fire, so to speak, till, after more or less violent exertion, she has succeeded in throwing her victim on its back. Then she stings it in two particular spots, the throat, namely, and between the thorax and abdomen. Instantly the struggles of the wretched creature cease: a ganglion, or nerve centre, has, with each sting, been pierced—it is paralysed, but not by any means dead. To kill it, indeed, is far from the intention of the _sphex_ herself, and, kind and thoughtful mother, she does not allow the meat which she provides for her offspring to go bad. It will last, as she has managed it, for the whole time that it is wanted. All now is quite satisfactory. She can be grateful for mercies vouchsafed. She rests for a little, then seizing the helpless, living food by a leg or a wing, she drags it—for it is usually too heavy for her to fly with—to the mouth of her nursery larder. Here she leaves it for a little, while she enters to see that all is well. Re-emerging, she seizes it again, drags it down the tunnel, deposits it in one of the chambers, plasters it up, and leaves it for a while. In due time she returns with, and inters, another paralytic, and, having thus successively filled all the four chambers, she closes the mouth of the tunnel and flies merrily away—doubtless “With the gratifying feeling that her duty has been done.”