FOOD FOR A WASP.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1440, 15 December 1923, Page 3

FOOD FOR A WASP.

FUNERAL MARCH OF A SPIDER

Clamorous voices, breaking the Sabbath stillness of the countryside, brought the hurriedly out of daors, writes Joseph B. Gilder in the New York Evening Post. There, on the driveway, I found a family group absorbed in watching an episode ,of insect life enacted on the gravel. The cynosure of every eye was a blue-black wasp, dragging to his larder a huge and seemingly lifeless spider. In order to haul his quarry with his mandibles, the captor had to walk backwards; and his speedy progress made it obvious that his legs were so constructed and adjusted as to make it easy for his machinery to go in reverse. That his prey was not dead but only benumbed was made apparent by a suspension of the act of transportation, from time to time, in order that a supplementary sting might be inflicted at an appropriate spot; and his sight must have been fine, indeed, to detect any sign of life in a carcass which to the coarser vision of its human observers was absolutely inert.

The contrast between the two insects was very striking, the dull bulk of the spider forming an admirable foil for the slender, graceful form of the wasp, his wings glittering as he moved briskly about. Wasps are not friendly tq the human race; few of us have escaped their painful sting; and the spider, subtly cruel as he lurks in his far-flung web, preys chiefly on the flies and other pests of the lords of creation. Yet one could but admire the courage of the victor in the recent fight, and the skill and strength displayed in hauling the

torpid body to his distant dug-out. In a few minutes the edge of the

gravelled drive was reached; and here a grassy sod proved a stumbling block. The wasp now abandoned his cargo for a moment, climbed over the obstacle, found an easier course around it, dragged the spider off by the longer but smoother route, and then, leaving it again, flew off to the entrance to his hole in the ground—apparently to get the exact lay ,of the land between the point he had reached with his load and the goal of his laborious journey. Having gained the needed information, he returned promptly to the task, and this procedure he repeated several times, flying back and forth with an unerring sense of direction—and incidentally, perhaps, giving his leg muscles' a welcome and well-earned rest.

The whole trip or so much of it as was made after the family had assembled to watch it—covered a distance of about twenty feet, and with interruptions due to the necessity of surmounting obstacles and spying out the land, it consumed a quarter of an hour. Considering the distance covered, and the fact that the pilot and engineer of the convoy was obliged, when on foot, to move backwards, the directness of the route was something to marvel at, the trip being a much longer one for the wasp, of course, than it would have been for those who watched him. Remarkable, too, was the insect’s apparent indifference to the human “gallery” that followed his footsteps as closely and keenly as a crowd of golf “fans” follows a champion over the course.

At last the journey ended, the wasp backed down through the verticle entrance of his house, dragged the body after him. and by a succession of vigorous tugs gradually drew the protruding legs of his victim down behind the trunk till no vestige remained in sight. The wasp’s larder was now replenished with fresh food —and the gallery had enjoyed a fascinating glimpse of “the world we live in.”