Of the various insects that like to make their home in our houses, certainly the most interesting, for her beautiful shape, her curious manners, and her wonderful nest, is a certain Wasp called the Pelopaeus. She is very little known, even to the people by whose fireside she lives. This is owing to her quiet, peaceful ways; she is so very retiring that her host is nearly always ignorant of her presence.
...
I once saw a Bee-eating Wasp, while carrying a Bee to her storehouse, attacked and caught by a Mantis. The Wasp was in the act of eating the honey she had found in the Bee’s crop. The double saw of the Mantis closed suddenly on the feasting Wasp; but neither terror nor torture could persuade that greedy creature to leave off eating. Even while she was herself being actually devoured she continued to lick honey from her Bee!
Le Fantôme de la Liberté (1947)
Theatrical Release Information
* US Theatrical Release Date: November 1974
* MPAA: Safe::Root0::PI::Media::Description=HASH(0x9f97c1e4)
* Production Company: Euro International Film (EIA) S.p.A., Greenwich Film Productions
* USA Box Office: $0 Million
CHAPTER 6.
INSTINCT AND DISCERNMENT.
The
Pelopaeus (A Mason-wasp forming the subject of essays which have not
yet been published in English.--Translator's Note.) gives us a very
poor idea of her intellect when she plasters up the spot in the wall
where the nest which I have removed used to stand, when she persists in
cramming her cell with Spiders for the benefit of an egg no longer
there and when she dutifully closes a cell which my forceps has left
empty, extracting alike germ and provisions. The Mason-bees (Cf. "The
Mason-bees": chapter 7.--Translator's Note.), the caterpillar of the
Great Peacock Moth (Cf. "Social Life in the Insect World" by J.H.
Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall: chapter 14.-- Translator's Note.)
and many others, when subjected to similar tests, are
guilty of the same illogical behaviour: they continue, in the normal
order, their series of industrious actions, though an accident has now
rendered them all useless. Just like millstones unable to cease
revolving though there be no corn left to grind, let them once be given
the compelling power and they will continue to perform their task
despite its futility. Are they then machines? Far be it from me to
think anything so foolish.
Bramble Bees and Others by Jean Henri Fabre
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