The Mason-Wasps

This is the second volume on Wasps in the Collected Edition of Fabre’s Souvenirs entomologiques. The first of these was The Hunting Wasps; and the present volume is somewhat wilfully entitled, for all Wasps hunt in varying degrees, if not on their own behalf, at least on that of their young. My object, however, was to bring together all the essays treating of those Wasps who actually build homes or nests, as distinct from burrows. The last book on Wasps will be called More Hunting Wasps and will be issued towards the end of the series.

For reasons which will be easily apparent to the reader, I have reprinted the chapter called Instinct and Discernment, which was included in Bramble-bees and Others, and that on the Volucella, which, under the title of The Bumble-bee Fly, formed part of The Life of the Fly. Apart from the two chapters named and the essay on the Eumenes, which figures in The Wonders of Instinct, published in America by the Century Co., [vi]none of the contents of this volume has until now appeared in the English language. The Volucella is included by arrangement with Mr. Fisher Unwin, the publisher of The Wonders of Instinct in England.

My thanks are due to the late Miss Frances Rodwell and to my friend Bernard Miall, both of whom have been of great assistance to me in preparing my translation.

Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

CHELSEA, 18 April, 1919. [vii]