Matters being thus arranged, all goes fairly well in the beginning. After hiding between the combs at night, the Wasps come out when the sun shines on the wire cover. They emerge into the light and stand in it, pressed closely one against the other. Presently they become more animated: they climb to the wire roof, move idly to and fro, descend and quench their appetite at the pool of honey or at the grape-pips. The neuters take to flight, wheel round, cluster on the trelliswork; the bravely-horned males curl their antennæ with quite a sprightly air; the heavier females take no part in these diversions.
A week goes by. The visits to the refectory, though brief, seem to speak of a certain well-being; nevertheless, without apparent cause, mortality now makes a sudden appearance. A neuter is resting in the sun, motionless, on the side of a comb. There is nothing about it to denote ill-health. Suddenly it drops down, falls on its back, moves its abdomen for a moment, kicks its legs about and all is over: it is dead.
As for the females, they too give me cause for alarm. I surprise one as she is crawling out of the nest. Lying on her back, she [[264]]stretches her limbs, twitches her abdomen and, after a few convulsions, lies absolutely still. I believe her dead. She is nothing of the sort. After a sun-bath, a sovran cordial, she recovers her legs again and goes back to the stack of combs. Yet the resuscitated Wasp is not saved. During the afternoon she is seized with a second fit, which this time leaves her really lifeless, with her legs in the air.
Death, if it be only the death of a Wasp, is always a solemn thing, worthy of our meditation. Day by day, with a curiosity not devoid of emotion, I watch the end of my insects. One detail especially strikes me: the neuters succumb suddenly. They come to the surface, slip down, fall on their backs and rise no more, as though they were struck by lightning. They have had their day; they are slain by age, that inexorable toxin. Even so does a piece of clockwork become inert when its mainspring has unwound its last spiral.
But the females, the last-born of the community, far from being overcome by decrepitude, are, on the contrary, just entering upon life. They have the vigour of youth; and so, when the winter sickness seizes them, they are capable of a certain resistance, [[265]]whereas the old workers perish suddenly. In the same way, the males, so long as their part is not played out, resist the cold fairly well. My cage contains a few, always nimble and alert. I see them making advances to their companions, without greatly insisting. They are repulsed with a friendly push of the leg. The time is past for the raptures of the pairing. Those lingerers have let the right moment slip; they will die useless.
The females whose end is near are easily distinguished from the others by the disorder of their appearance. Their backs are dusty. Those who are hale and hearty, once they have taken their meal on the brim of the saucer of honey, settle in the sun and dust themselves without ceasing. There is an incessant brushing of the wings and abdomen, with gentle, sensitive extensions of the hind-legs; the fore-legs repeatedly stroke the head and the thorax. Thus the black-and-yellow costume is kept perfectly glossy. Those who are ailing, careless of cleanliness, stand motionless in the sun or wander languidly about. They no longer brush their clothes.
This indifference to dress is a bad sign. Two or three days later, in fact, the dusty female leaves the nest for the last time and [[266]]goes on the roof, to enjoy yet a little of the sunlight; then, her nerveless claws relinquishing their hold, she slides quietly to the ground and does not get up again. She declines to die in her beloved paper home, where the code of the Wasps ordains absolute cleanliness.
If the neuters, those fierce hygienists, were still there, they would seize the helpless creature and drag her outside. Themselves the first victims of the winter evil, they are lacking; and the dying Wasp proceeds to perform her own funeral rites by dropping herself into the charnel-pit at the bottom of the cavern. For reasons of health, an indispensable condition with such a multitude, these stoics refuse to die in the actual house, among the combs. The last survivors retain this repugnance to the very end. For them it is a law which never falls into disuse, however greatly reduced the population may be. No corpse can be allowed to remain in the babies’ dormitory.
My cage becomes emptier day by day, notwithstanding the mild temperature of the room, notwithstanding the saucer of honey at which the able-bodied come to sip. At Christmas I have only a dozen females left. [[267]]On the 6th of January, with snow out of doors, the last of them perishes.
Whence arises this mortality, which mows down the whole of my Wasps? My attentions have preserved them from the calamities which at first sight might appear to cause their death under the usual conditions. Fed upon honey and grapes, they have not suffered from famine: warmed by the heat of my fire, they have not suffered from cold; cheered almost daily by the sun’s rays and living in their own nest, they have not suffered from home-sickness. Then what have they died of?