Chapter I: Front Matter

THE MASON-WASPS

BY
J. HENRI FABRE

TRANSLATED BY
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1919

CONTENTS

PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE v
CHAPTER
I THE EUMENES 1
II THE ODYNERI 28
III THE PELOPÆUS 60
IV THE AGENIÆ; THE PELOPÆUS’ VICTUALS 84
V ABERRATIONS OF INSTINCT 106
VI THE SWALLOW AND THE SPARROW 133
VII INSTINCT AND DISCERNMENT 155
VIII THE NEST-BUILDING ODYNERUS 176
IX INSECT GEOMETRY 219
X THE COMMON WASP 240
XI THE COMMON WASP (continued) 270
XII THE VOLUCELLA 288

INDEX 313

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

This is the second volume on Wasps in the Collected Edition of Fabre’s Souvenirs entomologiques. The first of these was The Hunting Wasps; and the present volume is somewhat wilfully entitled, for all Wasps hunt in varying degrees, if not on their own behalf, at least on that of their young. My object, however, was to bring together all the essays treating of those Wasps who actually build homes or nests, as distinct from burrows. The last book on Wasps will be called More Hunting Wasps and will be issued towards the end of the series.

For reasons which will be easily apparent to the reader, I have reprinted the chapter called Instinct and Discernment, which was included in Bramble-bees and Others, and that on the Volucella, which, under the title of The Bumble-bee Fly, formed part of The Life of the Fly. Apart from the two chapters named and the essay on the Eumenes, which figures in The Wonders of Instinct, published in America by the Century Co., none of the contents of this volume has until now appeared in the English language. The Volucella is included by arrangement with Mr. Fisher Unwin, the publisher of The Wonders of Instinct in England.

My thanks are due to the late Miss Frances Rodwell and to my friend Bernard Miall, both of whom have been of great assistance to me in preparing my translation.

Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

CHELSEA, 18 April, 1919.

THE MASON-WASPS