CHAPTER XII.

A NOBLE WASP.

_(Monedula punctata.)_


Naturalists, like kings and emperors, have their favourites, and as my
zoological sympathies, which are wider than my knowledge, embrace all
classes of beings, there are of course several insects for which I have
a special regard; a few in each of the principal orders. My chief
favourite among the hymenopteras is the one representative of the
curious genus Monedula known in La Plata. It is handsome and has
original habits, but it is specially interesting to me for another
reason: I can remember the time when it was extremely rare on the
pampas, so rare that in boyhood the sight of one used to be a great
event to me; and I have watched its rapid increase year by year till it
has come to be one of our commonest species. Its singular habits and
intelligence give it a still better claim to notice. It is a big, showy,
loud-buzzing insect, with pink head and legs, wings with brown
reflections, and body encircled with alternate bands of black and pale
gold, and has a preference for large composite flowers, on the honey of
which it feeds. Its young is, however, an insect-eater; but the Monedula
does not, like other burrowing or sand wasps, put away a store of
insects or spiders, partially paralyzed, as a provision for the grub
till it reaches the pupa state; it actually supplies the grub with
fresh-caught insects as long as food is required, killing the prey it
captures outright, and bringing it in to its young; so that its habits,
in this particular, are more bird- than wasp-like.