THE YELLOW-WINGED SPHEX

The Hunting Wasps by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE YELLOW-WINGED SPHEX

Chapter IV. THE YELLOW-WINGED SPHEX

Under their powerful armour, which no dart can penetrate, the insects of the Beetle tribe offer but a single vulnerable spot to the sting-bearing enemy. This defect in the breastplate is known to the murderess, who drives in her poisoned dagger there and at one blow strikes the three motor centres, for she selects her victims from the Weevil and Buprestis families, whose nervous system is centralized to the requisite degree. But what will happen when the prey is an insect clad not in mail but in a soft skin, which the Wasp can stab here or there indifferently, in any part of the body that chances to be exposed? In that case are the blows still delivered scientifically? Like the assassin who strikes at the heart to cut short the dangerous resistance of his victim, does the assailant follow the tactics of the Cerceres and wound the motor ganglia by preference? If that be so, then what happens when these ganglia are some distance apart and so independent in their action that paralysis of one is not necessarily followed by paralysis of the others? These questions will be answered by the story of a Cricket-huntress, the Yellow-winged Sphex (Sphex flavipennis).

It is at the end of July that the Yellow-winged Sphex tears the cocoon that has protected her until then and flies out of her subterranean cradle. During the whole of August she is frequently seen flitting, in search of some drop of honey, around the spiked heads of the field eryngo, the commonest of the hardy plants that brave the heat of the dog-days in this month. But this careless life does not last long, for by the beginning of September the Sphex is at her arduous task as a sapper and huntress. She generally selects some small plateau, on the high banks by the side of the roads, wherein to establish her home, provided that she find two indispensable things there: a sandy soil, easy to dig; and sunshine. No other precaution is taken to protect the dwelling against the autumn rains or winter frosts. A horizontal site, unprotected, lashed by the rain and the winds, suits her perfectly, on condition, however, that it is exposed to the sun. And, when a heavy shower comes in the middle of her mining, it is pitiful next day to see the half-built galleries in ruins, choked with sand and finally abandoned by their engineers.

The Sphex seldom practises her industry alone; the site selected is usually exploited by small bands of ten or twenty sappers or more. One must have spent days in contemplating one of these villages to form any idea of the restless activity, the spasmodic haste, the abrupt movements of those hard-working miners. The soil is rapidly attacked with the rakes of the forefeet: canis instar, as Linnæus says. No mischievous puppy displays more energy in digging up the ground. At the same time, each worker sings her glad ditty, which consists of a shrill and strident noise, constantly broken off and modulated by the vibrations of the wings and thorax. One would think that they were a troop of merry companions encouraging one another in their work with a cadenced rhythm. Meanwhile the sand flies, falling in a fine dust on their quivering wings; and the too bulky gravel, removed bit by bit, rolls far away from the workyard. If a piece seems too heavy to be moved, the insect gets up steam with a shrill note which reminds one of the woodman’s ‘Hoo!’ Under the redoubled efforts of tarsi and mandibles the cave soon takes shape; the insect is already able to dive into it bodily. We then see a lively alternation of forward movements, to loosen new materials, and backward movements, to sweep the rubbish outside. In this constant hurrying to and fro the Sphex does not walk, she darts as though shot from a spring; she bounds with throbbing abdomen and quivering antennæ, her whole body, in short, animated with a musical vibration. The miner is now out of sight; but we still hear underground her untiring song, while at intervals we catch a glimpse of her hind-legs, pushing a torrent of sand backwards to the mouth of the burrow. From time to time the Sphex interrupts her subterranean labours, either to come and dust herself in the sun, to rid herself of the grains of sand which, slipping into her delicate joints, might hamper the liberty of her movements, or else to reconnoitre the neighbourhood. Despite these interruptions, which for that matter do not last long, the gallery is dug in the space of a few hours; and the Sphex comes to her threshold to chant her triumph and give the finishing polish to her work by removing some unevenness and carrying away a speck or two of earth whose drawbacks are perceptible to her discerning eye alone.

Of the numerous tribes of Sphex-wasps which I have visited, one in particular remains fixed in my memory because of its curious dwelling-place. On the edge of a high-road were some small heaps of mud, taken from the ditches by the road-mender’s shovel. One of these heaps, long ago dried in the sun, formed a cone-shaped mound, resembling a large sugar-loaf twenty inches high. The site seemed to have attracted the Wasps, who had established themselves there in a more populous colony than I have ever since beheld. The cone of dry mud was riddled from top to bottom with burrows, which gave it the appearance of an enormous sponge. On every storey there was a feverish animation, a busy coming and going which reminded one of the scenes in some great yard when the work is urgent. Crickets were being dragged by the antennæ up the slopes of the conical city; victuals were being stored in the larders of the cells; dust was pouring from the galleries in process of excavation by the miners; grimy faces appeared at intervals at the mouths of the tunnels; there were constant exits and constant entrances; and now and again a Sphex, in her brief intervals of leisure, would climb to the top of the cone, perhaps to cast a look of satisfaction from this belvedere over the works in general. What a spectacle to tempt me, to make me long to carry the whole city and its inhabitants away with me! It was useless even to try: the mass was too heavy. One cannot root up a village from its foundations to transplant it elsewhere.

We will return, therefore, to the Sphex-wasps working on level ground, in ordinary soil, as happens in by far the greater number of cases. As soon as the burrow is dug, the chase begins. Let us profit by the Wasp’s distant excursions in search of her game and examine the dwelling. The usual site of a Sphex colony is, as I said, level ground. Nevertheless, the soil is not so smooth but that we find a few little mounds crowned with a tuft of grass or wormwood, a few cracks consolidated by the scanty roots of the vegetation that covers them. It is in the sides of these furrows that the Sphex builds her dwelling. The gallery consists first of a horizontal portion, two or three inches long and serving as an approach to the hidden retreat destined for the provisions and the larvæ. It is in this entrance-passage that the Sphex takes shelter in bad weather; it is here that she retires for the night and rests for a few moments in the daytime, putting outside only her expressive face, with its great, bold eyes. Following on the vestibule comes a sudden bend, which descends more or less obliquely to a depth of two or three inches more and ends in an oval cell of somewhat larger diameter, whose main axis lies horizontally. The walls of the cell are not coated with any particular cement; but, in spite of their bareness, we can see that they have been the object of the most conscientious labour. The sand has been heaped up and carefully levelled on the floor, the ceiling and the sides, so as to prevent landslips and remove any roughness that might hurt the delicate skin of the grub. Lastly, this cell communicates with the passage by a narrow entrance, just wide enough to admit the Sphex laden with her prey.

When this first cell is supplied with an egg and the necessary provisions, the Sphex walls up the entrance, but does not yet abandon her burrow. A second cell is dug beside the first and victualled in the same way; then a third and sometimes a fourth. Not till then does the Sphex shoot back into the burrow all the rubbish accumulated outside the door and completely remove all the outward traces of her work. Thus, to each burrow there are usually three cells, rarely two and still more rarely four. Now, as we ascertain when dissecting the insect, we can estimate the number of eggs laid at about thirty, which brings up to ten the number of burrows needed. On the other hand, the operations are hardly begun before September and are finished by the end of the month. The Sphex, therefore, can devote only two or three days at most to each burrow and its provisioning. No one will deny that the active little creature has not a moment to lose, when, in so short a time, she has to excavate her den, to procure a dozen Crickets, to carry them sometimes from a distance in the face of innumerable difficulties, to store them away and finally to stop up the burrow. And, besides, there are days when the wind makes hunting impossible, rainy days or even merely grey days, which cause all work to be suspended. One can readily imagine from this that the Sphex is unable to give to her buildings the perhaps permanent solidity which the Great Cerceres bestow upon their long galleries. The latter hand down from generation to generation their substantial dwellings, each year excavated to a greater depth than the last, galleries which threw me into a sweat when I tried to inspect them and which generally triumphed over my efforts and my implements. The Sphex does not inherit the work of her predecessors: she has to do everything for herself and quickly. Her dwelling is but a tent, hastily pitched for a day and shifted on the morrow. As compensation, the larvæ, who have only a thin layer of sand to cover them, are capable themselves of providing the shelter which their mother could not create: they clothe themselves in a threefold and fourfold waterproof wrapper, far superior to the thin cocoon of the Cerceres.

But here, with a loud buzz, comes a Sphex who, returning from the chase, stops on a neighbouring bush, holding in her mandibles, by one antenna, a large Cricket, several times her own weight. Exhausted by the burden, she takes a moment’s rest. Then she once more grips her captive between her feet and, with a supreme effort, covers in one flight the width of the ravine that separates her from her home. She alights heavily on the level ground where I am watching, in the very middle of a Sphex village. The rest of the journey is performed on foot. The Wasp, not at all intimidated by my presence, bestrides her victim and advances, bearing her head proudly aloft and hauling the Cricket, who trails between her legs, by an antenna held in her mandibles. If the ground be bare, it is easy to drag the victim along; but, should some grass-tuft spread the network of its shoots across the road, it is curious to observe the amazement of the Sphex when one of these little ropes suddenly thwarts her efforts; it is curious to witness her marches and counter-marches, her reiterated attempts, until the obstacle is overcome, either with the aid of the wings or by means of a clever deviation. The Cricket is at last conveyed to his destination and is so placed that his antennæ exactly touch the mouth of the burrow. The Sphex then abandons her prey and descends hurriedly to the bottom of the cave. A few seconds later we see her reappear, showing her head out of doors and giving a little cry of delight. The Cricket’s antennæ are within her reach; she seizes them and the game is brought quickly down to the lair.

I still ask myself, without being able to find a sufficiently convincing solution, the reason for these complicated proceedings at the moment when the Cricket is introduced into the burrow. Instead of going down to her den alone, to reappear afterwards and pick up the prey left for a time on the threshold, would not the Sphex have done better to continue to drag the Cricket along the gallery as she does in the open air, seeing that the width of the tunnel permits it, or else to go in first, backwards, and pull him after her? The various Predatory Wasps whom I have hitherto been able to observe carry down to their cells straight away, without preliminaries, the game which they hold clasped beneath their bellies with the aid of their mandibles and their middle-legs. Léon Dufour’s Cerceris begins by complicating her procedure, because, after laying her Buprestis for a moment at the door of her underground home, she at once enters her gallery backwards and then seizes the victim with her mandibles and drags it to the bottom of the burrow. But it is a far cry from these tactics and those adopted in a like case by the Cricket-hunters. Why that domiciliary visit which invariably precedes the entrance of the game? Could it not be that, before descending with a cumbrous burden, the Sphex thinks it wise to take a look at the bottom of her dwelling, so as to make sure that all is well and, if necessary, to drive out some brazen parasite who may have slipped in during her absence? If so, who is the parasite? Several Diptera, Predatory Gnats, especially Tachinæ, watch at the doors of the Hunting Wasps, spying for the propitious moment to lay their eggs on others’ provisions; but none of them enters the home or ventures into the dark passages where the owner, if by ill-luck she happened to be in, would perhaps make them pay dearly for their audacity. The Sphex, like all the rest, pays her tribute to the plundering Tachinæ; but these never enter the burrow to perpetrate their misdeeds. Besides, have they not all the time that they need to lay their eggs on the Cricket? If they are sharp about it, they can easily profit by the temporary abandonment of the victim to entrust their progeny to it. Some greater danger still must therefore threaten the Sphex, since her preliminary descent of the burrow is of such imperious necessity.

Here is the only fact observed by myself that may throw a little light on the problem. Amid a colony of Sphex-wasps in full swing, a colony from which any other Wasp is usually excluded, I one day surprised a huntress of a different genus, Tachytes nigra, carrying one by one, without hurrying, in the midst of the crowd where she was but an intruder, grains of sand, bits of little dry stalks and other diminutive materials to stop up a burrow of the same shape and width as the adjacent burrows of the Sphex. The labour was too carefully performed to allow of any doubt of the presence of the worker’s egg in the tunnel. A Sphex moving about uneasily, apparently the lawful owner of the burrow, did not fail, each time that the strange Wasp entered the gallery, to rush in pursuit of her; but she emerged swiftly, as though frightened, followed by the other, who impassively continued her work. I inspected this burrow, evidently an object in dispute between the two Wasps, and found in it a cell provisioned with four Crickets. Suspicion almost makes way for certainty: these provisions are far in excess of the needs of a Tachytes-grub, who is certainly not more than half the size of the larva of the Sphex. She whose impassiveness, whose care to stop up the burrow would at first have made one take her for the mistress of the house, was in reality a mere usurper. How is it that the Sphex, who is larger and more powerful than her adversary, allows herself to be robbed with impunity, confining herself to fruitless pursuits and fleeing like a coward when the interloper, who does not even appear to notice her presence, turns round to leave the burrow? Can it be that, in insects as in man, the first chance of success lies in de l’audace, encore de l’audace et toujours de l’audace? The usurper certainly had audacity and to spare. I see her still, with imperturbable calmness, moving in and out in front of the complaisant Sphex, who stamps her feet with impatience but does not fall upon the thief.

I will add that, in other circumstances, I have repeatedly found the same Wasp, whom I presume to be a parasite, in short the Black Tachytes, dragging a Cricket by one of his antennæ. Was he a lawfully-acquired prey? I should like to think so; but the vacillating behaviour of the insect, who went straying about the ruts in the roads as though seeking for a burrow to suit it, always left me uncertain. I have never witnessed its digging-work, if it really undertakes the labour of excavation. And, a more serious matter, I have seen it leave its game on the rubbish-heap, perhaps not knowing what to do with it, for lack of a burrow wherein to place it. Such wastefulness as this seems to me to point to ill-gotten goods; and I ask myself if the Cricket were not stolen from the Sphex at the moment when she abandoned her prey on the threshold. My suspicions also fall upon Tachytes obsoleta, banded with white round the abdomen like Sphex albisecta and feeding her larvæ on Crickets similar to those hunted by the latter. I have never seen her digging any galleries, but I have caught her with a Cricket whom the Sphex would not have rejected. This identity of provisions in species of different genera raises doubts in my mind as to the lawfulness of the booty. Let me add, lastly, to atone in a measure for the injury which my suspicions may do to the reputation of the genus, that I have been the eye-witness of a perfectly straightforward capture of a small and still wingless Cricket by Tachytes tarsina and that I have seen her digging cells and victualling them with game acquired by her own valiant exertions.

I have therefore only suspicions to offer in explanation of the obstinacy of the Sphex-wasps in going down their tunnels before carrying in their prey. Can they have some other object besides that of dislodging a parasite who may have arrived during their absence? This is what I despair of ever knowing; for who can interpret the thousand ruses of instinct? Poor human reason, which cannot even fathom the wisdom of a Sphex!

At any rate, it has been proved that these ruses are singularly invariable. In this connection I will mention an experiment which interested me greatly. Here are the particulars: at the moment when the Sphex is making her domiciliary visit, I take the Cricket left at the entrance to the dwelling and place her a few inches farther away. The Sphex comes up, utters her usual cry, looks here and there in astonishment, and, seeing the game too far off, comes out of her hole to seize it and bring it back to its right place. Having done this, she goes down again, but alone. I play the same trick upon her; and the Sphex has the same disappointment on her arrival at the entrance. The victim is once more dragged back to the edge of the hole, but the Wasp always goes down alone; and this goes on as long as my patience is not exhausted. Time after time, forty times over, did I repeat the same experiment on the same Wasp; her persistency vanquished mine and her tactics never varied.

Having demonstrated the same inflexible obstinacy which I have just described in the case of all the Sphex-wasps on whom I cared to experiment in the same colony, I continued to worry my head over it for some time. What I asked myself was this:

‘Does the insect obey a fatal tendency, which no circumstances can ever modify? Are its actions all performed by rule; and has it no power of acquiring the least experience on its own account?’

Some additional observations modified this too absolute view. Next year I visit the same spot at the proper season. The new generation has inherited the burrowing-site selected by the previous generation; it has also faithfully inherited its tactics: the experiment of withdrawing the Cricket yields the same results. Such as last year’s Sphex-wasps were, such are those of the present year, equally persistent in a fruitless procedure. The illusion was simply growing worse, when good fortune brought me into the presence of another colony of Sphex-wasps, in a district at some distance from the first. I recommenced my attempts. After two or three experiments with results similar to those which I had so often obtained, the Sphex got astride of the Cricket, seized him with her mandibles by the antennæ, and at once dragged him into the burrow. Who was the fool now? Why, the experimenter foiled by the clever Wasp! At the other holes, her neighbours likewise, one sooner, another later, discovered my treachery and entered the dwelling with the game, instead of persisting in abandoning it on the threshold to seize it afterwards. What did all this mean? The colony which I was now inspecting, descended from another stock—for the children return to the site selected by their parents—was cleverer than the colony of the year before. Craft is handed down: there are tribes that are sharper-witted and tribes that are duller-witted, apparently according to the faculties of their elders. With the Sphex as with us, the intellect differs with the province.

Next day, in a different locality, I repeated my experiment with another Cricket; and every time the Sphex was hoodwinked. I had come upon a dense-minded tribe, a regular village of Bœotians, as in my first observations.

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