CHAPTER XI. THE BUMBLEBEE FLY
Underneath the wasp's brown paper manor house, the ground is channeled into a sort of drain for the refuse of the nest. Here are shot the dead or weakly larvae which a continual inspection roots out from the cells to make room for fresh occupants; here, at the time of the autumn massacre, are flung the backward grubs; here, lastly, lies a good part of the crowd killed by the first touch of winter. During the rack and ruin of November and December, this sewer becomes crammed with animal matter.
Such riches will not remain unemployed. The world's great law which says that nothing edible shall be wasted provides for the consumption of a mere ball of hair disgorged by the owl. How shall it be with the vast stores of a ruined wasps' nest! If they have not come yet, the consumers whose task it is to salve this abundant wreckage for nature's markets, they will not tarry in coming and waiting for the manna that will soon descend from above. That public granary, lavishly stocked by death, will become a busy factory of fresh life. Who are the guests summoned to the banquet?
If the wasps flew away, carrying the dead or sickly grubs with them, and dropped them on the ground round about their home, those banqueters would be, first and foremost, the insect-eating birds, the warblers, all of whom are lovers of small game. In this connection, we will allow ourselves a brief digression. We all know with what jealous intolerance the nightingales occupy each his own cantonment. Neighborly intercourse among them is tabooed. The males frequently exchange defiant couplets at a distance; but, should the challenged party draw near, the challenger makes him clear off. Now, not far from my house, in a scanty clump of holly oaks which would barely give the woodcutter the wherewithal for a dozen faggots, I used, all through the spring, to hear such full-throated warbling of nightingales that the songs of those virtuosi, all giving voice at once and with no attempt at order, degenerated into a deafening hubbub.
Why did those passionate devotees of solitude come and settle in such large numbers at a spot where custom decrees that there is just room enough for one household only? What reasons have made the recluse become a congregation? I asked the owner of the spinney about the matter.
'It's like that every year,' he said. 'The clump is overrun by Nightingales.'
'And the reason?'
'The reason is that there is a hive close by, behind that wall.'
I looked at the man in amazement, unable to understand what connection there could be between a hive and the thronging nightingales.