summers. It may interest some of my readers to know the scientific names
of the chief characters mentioned. I do not think that any of them have
popular names. The heroine is the solitary Sand-Wasp _Odynerus
Spinipes_, a blacker and somewhat smaller insect than the familiar
yellow Wasps of Town and Garden. The Red King and the Black Queen are
the male and female of a solitary Bumble Bee, _Anthophora Pilipes_. The
Mistress of the Robes is a "Cuckoo" Bee, _Melecta armata_, which attends
on Anthophora, and lays its eggs in the cells made by Anthophora for her
own eggs. The grubs of both feed on the honey and pollen which
_Anthophora_ alone has the trouble of procuring. _O. Spinipes_ has
several cuckoos, the most officious being the jewel flies, _Chrysis
ignita_ and _Chrysis bidentata_, whose grubs, I fancy, eat the grub of
Spinipes, as well as the food stored up for it. The Ophion is a common
Ichneumon fly, and the beetle-grubs belong to a very common and
destructive weevil, _Hypera variabilis_.
The Sand Cliff splits the old gravel-pit in two, and, jutting southward,
fronts the mid-day sun. The cuttings driven east and west of it have
long been clothed with furze and briar and nettle. Rank grass conceals
the cart-track round its base, and, on its summit, a thin, root-bound
soil gives foothold to a straggling hedge of privet.
[Illustration: THE SAND CLIFF SPLITS THE OLD GRAVEL-PIT IN TWO]
Man, needing gravel only, scorned the sand; and, as he turned his back
on it, came Nature, gently mothering; and brought it warmth, and light,
and life.
First the wild Bees, Red Kings, Black Queens, fringe-footed,
shaggy-coated. These made a chambered palace of the cliff, and peopled
it within a summer. With them came Lords-in-Waiting and their Ladies, in
liveries of black velvet, ermine-faced; and, after these, a fluttering
gauze-winged host--jewel-flies ablaze with green and blue and crimson,
trim slender-waisted digger-wasps, long-streamered swart ichneumons.
And, last of all, came Spinipes herself.
Straight from the blue she dropped on May's last morning, swerved
through the hum and racket of the Bees, poised with her smoke-grey wings
a-whir, and lighted softly on the centre ledge, her ebony body mirroring
the sun, her five gold girdles blazing.
[Illustration: FIRST THE WILD BEES, RED KINGS, BLACK QUEENS]
Down dropped a Red King at her side. He stared at her right royally, and
kept right royal silence, yet there was kindness in his yellow face, and
kindness in the purr of his departure.
Down dropped a Black Queen in his place, and danced and hummed
about her, and measured her slim-waistedness, and buzzed her
disapproval.--"What is it?" asked she snappishly. "Why does it come in
this get-up? Where has it left its furs?"
[Illustration: DOWN DROPPED A RED KING AT HER SIDE. HE
STARED AT HER RIGHT ROYALLY]
"It never had furs," said a voice behind her. It was her Mistress of the
Robes.
"I know the family, Ma'am. Queer clothes, of course. But artists, Ma'am,
artists to the toe-tips."
"Artists in what?" said the Black Queen.
"In Sand, Ma'am, in Sand. See, she's starting now."
"That's hive-bee's work," said the Black Queen contemptuously.
"The art comes at the finish, Ma'am----"
[Illustration: IN SAND, MA'AM, IN SAND. SEE, SHE'S
STARTING NOW]
"Well, call me when it comes," said the Black Queen, "and keep her off
the nurseries, and clean that eleventh cell of mine, and wait till I
come back. She soared up skywards, fussily, cleared the cliff's head,
circled three times about, and set a straight course south.
"Good riddance!" said the Mistress of the Robes.
"They're like that everywhere," said Spinipes. "What are her nurseries
to me? Black Queens and black sand go together. Now this is red sand. I
feel the grip and bind of it."
She was quite right. The ledge was rain-washed silt. Sunshine had
bleached the outer crust of it, but, under this, its substance was
brick-red--fine ground stuff too, damp, clingy, easily tunnelled, and
easily smarmed into a hold-fast mortar.
"In that case," said the Mistress of the Robes, "I may as well be going."
Slowly she floated off the ledge, yet kept her face towards it. Slowly
she tacked from side to side, in dipping, widening sweeps. Slowly she
passed the cliff's east edge, and disappeared.
_Then_ Spinipes commenced to dig in earnest.
[Illustration: "WELL, CALL ME WHEN IT COMES," SAID THE
BLACK QUEEN]
Her scissor-jaws worked viciously, carved four-square pellets from the
sun-baked crust, gripped them and flung them backwards. As she engaged
the softer soil, she added feverish foot-work, and scraped, and rasped,
and scrabbled it, and kicked it back in dust-clouds. Her head was
quickly buried, next her waist, and, presently, she disappeared
completely.
But not for long.
She backed up to the surface, dragging a sand-load underneath her body.
She shook this clear, and, without resting, dived afresh. Ten loads in
all she raised, and each one meant a longer spell below. For she had
more to do than dig. From end to end her shaft must needs be glazed--and
this meant patient mouth-work, deft steadying touches as the mortar set,
and skill to keep her tube's round symmetry, and guide it in a gentle
curve to end in quiet darkness. Three inches down she sank, and, at the
bottom, drove a slant, and hollowed out a store-room.
With this the first stage ended. She left her shaft, and, poising in
mid-air, made survey of the ledge. To right she swerved, to left again,
outwards and back, upwards and down, until its bearings east and west,
from sky above, and earth below, were rooted in her memory.
[Illustration: _THEN_ SPINIPES COMMENCED TO DIG IN
EARNEST]
So far, so good--her morning's work was done, the picture of it fixed
into her mind. Upwards she soared until the receding cliff shrunk to a
splotch of brown. Once more she took her bearings and was satisfied, set
her course east, and, with a dropping arrow's flight, came to the
hill-top coppice. She landed on the bramble hedge which skirts its
western clearing.
"Good hunting, sister!" said the Ophion Fly. She sat on a high
briar-leaf, her rainbow wings uplifted.
"It's hardly time for that," said Spinipes. "To-morrow, p'raps. To-day I
feed myself."
"There's lucerne on the slope," the Ophion said, "and something
underneath you."
There was a snap and flicker in the grass, and presently appeared a
pygmy beetle, long-snouted, dusty-coated, trailing its slow legs wearily.
"D'you _see_ it?" said the Ophion Fly.
"I see it, but what of it?"
"It means good hunting, sister. Green grubs, black-headed, fatted. Too
small for me, but just the size for you. You'll find them in the
lucerne."
"Thank you," said Spinipes, but she was half across the field, a
dancing, filmy wisp of pink, wind-borne.
A meal, and then to work, thought Spinipes. It must be done by sunset.
It must. It must.
From spray to spray she flitted. Flower after flower she robbed of its
pale nectar. Bud after bud she nibbled. At last she found the food she
sought, and, with her strength renewed, took flight. Upwards she soared;
three times she circled round; then in a straight, unbroken course,
whizzed to her shaft. Her pace was scarcely slackened as she entered.
Her wings closed lengthways on her back, and, in a moment, she was at
the bottom.
Something was there before her.
[Illustration: "GOOD HUNTING, SISTER!" SAID THE OPHION
FLY]
Something six legged, which kicked and squirmed and writhed. Something
which coiled to a hard, slippery ball, and rolled away from capture.
There was no space for it to pass, and yet there seemed no holding it.
At last she pinned it with her feet, and, backing, dragged it upwards to
the light. It was a radiant jewel fly, a squat, short-waisted, dumpy
thing made glorious by its colour. Gems sparkled on it head to tail,
sapphire and ruby, emerald and topaz, and, as it struggled, fire of gold
blazed and died down upon its jerking body. Instinctively she shook and
worried it. Instinctively she flung it down the slope. Head over tail,
tight-clenched, it spun, nor opened till it reached the grass below.
Here it snapped out to shape again, took instant wing, and, with a
glancing flight, regained the ledge.
"An excellent shaft, Madam; quite excellent. No doubt you made it for a
special purpose. Now I----"
"Listen to me," said Spinipes, "and mark my every word. If you come near
that shaft again--if you so much as touch it with your feet, I'll sting
your prying life out."
She charged at it full swing and chased it off the ledge.
"An area sneak!" she muttered, as she dropt underground once more--"and
over-dressed at that."
[Illustration: THE LAST TO CEASE FROM PLAY WAS THE
ROSE-CHAFER]
Below the walls showed signs of the encounter--it took ten minutes to
repair their glazing. When this was done, she crept back to the
entrance. It was high noon. A shimmery haze rose from the heated sand.
The hum of work died fitfully away, as, one by one, the homing bees
sought shade. The digger-wasps dived deep into their holes; the hunting
spiders hid themselves. These were the last to cease from work; the last
to cease from play was the rose-chafer.
Him the fierce blaze of heat impelled to bursts of clumsy flight. Across
the pit and back again, and up and down the surface of the cliff, he
whirred and swung at random. Soon even he grew listless, and crept
within the shelter of the privet.
The change came with a catspaw breeze, which rippled from the valley,
and, in its quiet passing, fanned the cliff.
It brought back life and energy.
Out flew the bees, a jostling, buzzing throng of them, see-sawing wildly
up and down, swinging, reversing, wheeling. At length they towered and
broke to work. Out crept the hunting spiders, zebra-coated; the
fluttering, dancing, digger-wasps; the lightning-footed ants. Out, last
of all, came Spinipes herself.
[Illustration: OUT FLEW THE BEES]
Her first care was her toilet. She combed her long antennæ out and
nibbled at each foot. A circling flight to stretch her wings ended where
it had started; and, in a moment, she had plunged below. Two minutes she
stayed underground, then came up slowly backwards. Between her jaws was
a clean-cut sand pellet. She placed it on the rim of the shaft opening,
and, with deft touches from her lips, cemented it in station. She danced
about it joyously, with fluttery wings, with airy, buoyant feet,
moistened it here, kneaded it there. Once more she dived and dragged a
second pellet up, and fixed this too upon the rim. So diving, digging,
fixing, shaping, she raised a low ring-parapet.
Hour after hour she toiled, tier after tier she added, gluing each
pellet firmly to the last, yet leaving open space between each junction.
So rose a filagree tube of sand, so fragile that a touch would crumble
it; so strong that it would bear four times her weight. Before a shadow
reached the cliff, it was a half-inch high. But shadows meant an end to
the day's work, and Spinipes crept down below and slept.
[Illustration: HOUR AFTER HOUR SHE TOILED]
The morning sun had shone four hours before she stirred. She peered out
round-eyed from her tower, and, twisting on the rim of it, hung for a
while head-downwards. A flash of green and crimson light, and something
settled under her. It was the Jewel Fly again.
"Fine progress, Madam, and a first-rate tower. I never saw a better."
No word said Spinipes, but straightway launched, and flew at her.
"Out, cuckoo-sneak!" she screamed. "Out! or I sting!"
The Jewel Fly dodged like a gnat, and vanished round the corner.
She certainly meant mischief.
The lowest chamber of the shaft now held a precious thing--a
spindle-shaped gold egg, slung to the side-wall by a silken thread. Back
darted Spinipes to look at it; and test the fine-spun sling again; and
fuss with it; and feel that it was hers.
[Illustration: THE LOWEST CHAMBER OF THE SHAFT NOW HELD
A PRECIOUS THING]
Then up to her look-out once more. This time she dropped down to the
sand and sunned herself contentedly.
The Bees had long been working. Forward and back they passed
unceasingly, now and again one towered, now and again one settled; but
never did their labour-song, a droning, buzzing, humming chanty, weaken
or gather strength. The Jewel Fly had vanished altogether, yet Spinipes
still seemed to fear her coming. A full half hour she stayed on guard,
and spent the time in adding to her tower, and rounding off its
entrance, which, of its own weight, took a gentle down-curve. Then,
after one last gaze upon her egg, she flew afield.
"Good hunting, sister!" said the Ophion Fly. She sat on the same leaf as
yesterday.
"I want them now," said Spinipes.
"The're thousands of them, thousands," said the fly, "and most of them
quite fat."
[Illustration: IT WAS A FLABBY, GREEN, BLACK-HEADED
GRUB]
But Spinipes was too engrossed to hear her. Already, swayed by instinct
she was hunting, hunting an unknown quarry in the lucerne. From plant to
plant, from leaf to leaf, she fluttered. Now she dropped down to earth,
and ran this way and that in the green twilight tangle. Now she sped
nimble-footed up a stalk. Now she took flight and skimmed above the
leaves.
At last she paused, her every muscle trembling, and stared at what
confronted her.
It was a flabby, green, black-headed grub, fixed slug-like on its
food-plant. A trail of skeleton tracery marked where its jaws had
passed, and, as it reached the border of its leaf it swung its head, and
starting near midrib, gnawed yet another ribbon-strip of green.
[Illustration]
It ceased to feed as Spinipes appeared, and rested motionless, until her
weight made its leaf-platform shiver. Then it dropped silently to earth.
But Spinipes reached earth almost as fast, and, quartering every inch of
ground, found it and gripped it tightly. It struggled feebly as she
pinned it down, and, as she stung it, shuddered. The sting was measured
to the millionth part. It robbed the grub of sentient life, yet left it
living. So Nature had enjoined. For every infant Spinipes, a score of
live green grubs. Robbed of full life, lest struggling they should harm
the egg; forbidden death, lest dying they should taint the shaft; lulled
to long sleep in mercy. Of Nature's ordinance the grub knew nothing--and
Spinipes knew nothing. Her task was to make store of food against the
time when her gold egg should hatch. Instinctively she knew the grub was
food: instinctively she paralysed its being: instinctively she laboured
to transport it.
Her jaws were fastened tight behind its head. Slowly she dragged it up a
stalk until blue sky alone was over her. Then, loosing her mouth-grip of
it, and clasping it with all six legs, she soared on high; one long
unbroken down-glide brought her to her tower. An instant's pause to
shift her grip, and she had pushed the grub within the entrance. Keeping
a foot-hold on it, she eased it gently downwards, until it lay beneath
her egg. She turned it over on its back and propped it to the side wall,
caressed her egg, and mounted to the light again.
Back to the lucerne field she flew, and, in ten minutes, reappeared, a
second grub beneath her.
This, too, she propped up carefully, and so she worked throughout the
day, hunting, benumbing, storing. Twelve grubs in all she brought. All
twelve she packed into a single pile. A few made feeble movements, and
these, for prudence' sake, she stung afresh.
She passed the night contentedly, for it had been good hunting.
[Illustration: An instant's pause to shift her grip, and
she had pushed the grub within the entrance.]
[Illustration: "Take that--and that--and that," said
Spinipes, and drove her sharp sting home.]
[Illustration: TWELVE GRUBS IN ALL SHE BROUGHT]
The morrow's sky was wind-swept. Across it scurried wisps of grey with
torn and fretted edges. These raced to catch each other, and fused in
rounded velvet clouds. Mass joined to mass, and, surging slowly upwards,
veiled the sun. Southwards, where earth met sky, a fine-drawn streak of
blue endured, while, here and there, a rent across the veil gave passage
to a radiant fan-spread beam. Once only did such radiance reach the
cliff. It brought a treacherous message. Out swarmed the bees to snatch
the chance of work, and out, with like intent, came Spinipes. Straight
to her hunting-ground she flew, but, even as she reached it, came the
rain.
[Illustration]
For two hours she was weather-bound. At last a watery gleam of light,
mirrored in every dripping leaf, enticed her from her shelter. Homeward
she sped, and, reaching home, found havoc. Her tower was gone--the
rain had razed it utterly--but there was worse mishap than this.
Swift-scurrying on the surface of the sand were gangs of ants, and every
gang was busy with a grub, one of _her_ grubs. They pulled and pushed
and shouted to each other, and worked their burdens upward to the cleft
which marked their city's entrance. She poised aghast, as with a mocking
spit at her, the gaping shaft disgorged another grub. Six sturdy ants
came with it, and, ranging up in order, (a pair to tug, a pair to push,
a pair to guide,) commenced their long ascent.
The grubs might be replaced in time--what of her precious egg? Downwards
she tumbled headlong. Three grubs, the lowest of the pile, were left;
her egg-- She had been in the nick of time. Her egg was there, nay more,
it was uninjured. Her mother instinct told her this as, with quick
trembling passes, she felt the hang and weight of it. Her mother
instinct swung her round, as down the shaft she heard a scraping
footfall. Even as she turned, an ant's black face peered round the lower
bend.
"Out thief!" she cried. "Assassin! Bandit! Robber!"
The ant retreated hurriedly, but all that night she sat at the shaft's
mouth, and barred the way below with her own body.
Next day the weather mended--a blaze of sun from an unclouded sky, and,
on the sand-cliff, ecstasy of life.
[Illustration]
Hard work in store for Spinipes! Three hours she spent in raising a
fresh tower, five hours in reprovisioning her burrow. But she no longer
worked alone. For others of her race had found the cliff, and other
towers, twin to her own, were rising from the sand-ledge. Between them
pygmy digger wasps dug shafts to match their bodies, and trident-tailed
ichneumons sailed about them, and sneaking, prying, jewel flies, here,
there, and everywhere on mischief bent.
[Illustration]
She _caught_ her old acquaintance, caught her in the act, and dragged
her out, and stung her as was promised.
"I looked inside, that's all--that's really all," whimpered the culprit
as she clutched the rim.
"Take that--and that--and that," said Spinipes, and drove her sharp
sting home. But jewel flies are toughened folk, and this one, flung
aside at last, was in full flight, and merry as a grig, within a minute
of her punishment.
Daily the work grew harder. It took more time to find the grubs, since
other wasps were hunting, and soon the increasing bulk of them taxed her
full powers of flight. Once, as she neared the ledge, she dropped her
burden. It lay where it had fallen till it died, for neither she nor
other of her kind had wit to forge, or mend, a link in instincts broken
chain. Once she found strange additions to her store. A human hand had
robbed a neighbouring shaft and, with well-meant intention, sought to
help her. Vain fancy! Here the self-same chain (to hunt--to catch--to
bring--to store) was, end for end, reversed. The alien grubs were, one
by one, dragged forth, and, one by one, flung headlong.
[Illustration: SHE SANK FIVE OTHER CURVING SHAFTS AND BUILT
FIVE TOWERS TO GUARD THEM]
Within a week the burrow held full store, a stack of five-and-twenty
grubs piled up to meet the egg. This last was at the hatching-point. The
silken cord, by which it hung, had lengthened with its growth, and each
hour found it closer to its food. All had gone well, and Spinipes' last
task, to seal the shaft with a partition-wall, was soon accomplished.
Nor did she ever see that egg again. In time the tower itself fell in--I
fancy that she helped it, and in its falling, smothered the main
entrance.
[Illustration]
She sank five other curving shafts--each held an egg--and built five
towers to guard them. She made five further stores of grubs; and then,
her life-work ended, she crept into a cleft and died.
What of the eggs? you ask. They hatched to golden yellow grubs, which
fattened on the food stores, and when, at length, their food was all
consumed, they spun them silken coverlets, and changed from grubs to
sleeping nymphs. They slept through autumn's dreariness, through
winter's cold, through spring's soft showers, and, when at length the
warmth of summer beckoned, they burst their bonds, and, working through
the sand, flew forth, as those before them had flown forth. So
recommenced the cycle. An æon back it was the same. An æon hence--who
knows?
[Illustration]
PICTURES ON BUTTERFLIES' WINGS
(JULY)
[Illustration: THE MAGPIE MOTH]
I have already told you of the beautiful colours to be found on
butterflies' wings, and how people have actually used a butterfly
paintbox to make pictures with. Now I am going to show you some
butterflies and moths (quite common ones all of them) which have queer
little pictures on their wings ready made--real pictures I mean, faces
and animals and things like that.
You may find it, at first, a little hard to see them, for they are
puzzle pictures, like those you get in crackers, but once you have found
the face, or whatever it may be, you won't be able to help seeing it.
I will start you with quite an easy one. Some of you, I expect, have
noticed how often living creatures have a pattern on them like an open
eye. This is called an "eye-marking," and is of course quite a different
thing from the eye which is used for seeing with. Nearly all our
butterflies have an eye-marking somewhere on their wings, and we find it
in many other creatures besides butterflies. In birds, for instance (you
will remember the peacock at once), and fish (next time you pass a big
fishmonger's look out for a John Dory, he has a beauty) and lizards and
snakes and frogs and things like that. It is not often seen on animals,
though a leopard's or a jaguar's spots are something very like it.
If you look at the picture of the Emperor Moth you will see that there
is a very nicely drawn eye on each of his upper wings (his real eyes are
quite hidden by his little fur cape); and if you look at the caterpillar
of the Elephant hawk-moth long enough, I am sure you will think that he
is looking back at you, and that he does not like the look of you much.
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR MOTH]
Here, again, it is not his eyes that you see, but his eye-markings. In
the first picture they are just where you would expect eyes to be, and I
must explain to you why. He is called the "Elephant" caterpillar because
the head-end of him ("head-end" sounds rather queer; but I think that if
one may say "tail-end" one may say "head-end") tapers off very quickly
from his fat body, and when he swings this end of him, as he often does,
it looks like an elephant's trunk. You will see what I mean in the
second picture.
[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT HAWK MOTH'S CATERPILLAR
SHOWING HIS EYE-MARKINGS]
Now when he is frightened or angry, he tucks his head in like a
telescope close up to the eye-markings, and then these look as if they
are really eyes.
Some people think, and they may be quite right, that these eye-markings
frighten off birds and lizards and things like that, who would soon eat
the caterpillar if they did not think that his eye-markings were really
eyes, and that they must have a big body behind them.
You remember the eyes as big as tea-cups in "The Little Tin Soldier"? If
you have not read that, read it as quickly as you can.
Eye-markings are very easy to see, and I am sure that you will be able
to find four of them on the wings of the Peacock Butterfly.
[Illustration: THE ELEPHANT HAWK-MOTH'S CATERPILLAR,
SHOWING HIS TRUNK]
Some people think that these frighten off creatures who might eat him,
just like those on the Elephant Hawk caterpillar, and some people think
just the opposite--that the eye-markings are so clear a mark that the
butterfly's enemies will bite at _them_, and so get a mouthful of
butterfly's wing, instead of the butterfly himself; which is, of course,
all for the good of the butterfly. I don't think we can be quite sure
that either of these reasons is true, but we may be certain that if the
eye-markings were not somehow useful to the butterfly they would not be
there.
[Illustration: THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLY]
The upper eye-markings on the Peacock have nothing particularly curious
about them, but those on the under-wings each form a clear man's face
with a big moustache, whiskers, and a bald forehead. If you hold the
paper a little way off, you will see it clearly. It is something like
Mr. Balfour.