The hunting wasp Book

Although the topic may seem dull, the author's clear enthusiasm for the subject matter kept my interest piqued. Crompton is in love with his wasps and his smitten state shows in his writing. You are forced to forgive the fact that personification is a sin in the field of biology.

In appearance Ammophilia is a little peculiar. Evidently they were wearing long waists when she came out, so that her abdomen looks like a pear on the end of a length of string. Nevertheless she is graceful and svelte. Her favorite color is black with the upper half of her abdomen an orange red, giving her quite a chic effect.

For a while Ammophilia lives on and around the flowers, basking in the sun and sipping nectar. Her life is one purely of pleasure and differs in no way from that of a butterfly. But motherhood brings changes. It develops tenderness and affection side by side with a capacity for fiendish cruelty. Ask any hunter which he would rather meet, a leapordess with cubs or the larger and normally more formidable male. So when the eggs begin to stir within her, Ammophilia turns her attention to other things than flowers. She ceases to be a dawdler. She loosens the sting in its sheath - that as yet unbloodied sword, so slender and delicate, so feminine in its daintiness - and goes a hunting.

In addition to his starry-eyed descriptions of all different types of hunting wasps, Crompton supplements the chapters with chilling, unsettling accounts of the charnel house activities occurring in the nests where wasp larvae and paralyzed victims are sequestered. He also includes stories about his pyromaniac house maid, a murderous gardener, and his own personal tragedies in his efforts to raise and protect honey bees. Overall, I thought he did quite well considering his audience was a bit of a niche market.