Of course, after a certain number of days, the eggs are hatched, each young _sphex_ caterpillar immediately falls to, and the grasshoppers that have been previously buried alive are now eaten alive—two kinds of deaths which are equally unpleasant, and each of which lasts a long time. However, they are paralysed—insensible, we may hope, therefore, to such pain as insects feel. Whether the paralysis is mental as well as corporeal it is impossible to say, but it may, in any case, be doubted whether grasshoppers can suffer through the mind. Assuming that they cannot, the inability, though it would involve another of an opposite nature, must yet here be considered advantageous, since that sort of pleasure which arises out of a just sense of the beautiful contrivances and adaptations of nature, must always, we may suppose, be beyond the capacity of an insect; and even were it not, it is the _sphex_ in this case whose mind would, in all probability, be most open to such reflections. The habits of the _sphex_ have been studied in Europe by “that inimitable observer,” as Darwin calls him, M. Fabre, from whose writings the foregoing account has been compiled. In India its place is taken by a very large wasp of a uniform steely-blue colour and a most venomous aspect. This kind makes a clay nest, of about the size and shape of a very large Brazil-nut, on the outside of some perpendicular surface, and often chooses for this purpose the walls of houses or bungaloes. I have watched it time after time flying in first with little glistening round balls of moist clay, and afterwards with curled up balls of caterpillars of about the same colour, but larger. With these she filled up one large cell, the entrance to which she then closed with more mud. It was an interesting sight, but, to enjoy it thoroughly, one ought to be an optimist.