Mrs Seaton's Letter

Wonders of Nature

“In the beginning God ....” These are the very first words that we read in the Bible, because in the beginning there was nothing except God. There were no mountains or rivers, no animals or insects, no men and women, or girls and boys. There was nothing, nothing at all, except God. As we look around us, boys and girls, we see such marvellous wonders of living creatures, don’t we? I was reading about one recently called a “digger wasp.” I wonder if any of you have even seen one? They are quite common in any piece of dry, sandy ground. They have very thin bodies, usually black in colour with bands or spots of red or yellow. Here is what a book I read said about them:

“Instead of building a nest, digger wasps make a hole, usually in the ground, to put their eggs and grubs in. Before laying her eggs, a female digger wasp goes off to look for a caterpillar. Having found one, she paralyses it with her sting. The wasp drags the caterpillar to the hole she has dug, drops it in, lays an egg on it, then seals up the hole. Later on, a wasp grub hatches out from the egg, feeds on the caterpillar and soon grows into an adult digger was which then lays eggs itself on another caterpillar.”

The interesting thing, boys and girls, is that the digger wasp has never seen another was going through all this complicated preparation for egg-laying. Nor will she see her baby wasp eat the caterpillar for food. For, remember, she seals up the hole after she drops the egg on the top of the caterpillar. The digger was does all this “automatically” without any thought. We usually say that such things are done “by instinct,” and by this we mean that the insect was born with this kind of behaviour already laid down in its brain.

But I trust you all know, boys and girls, who gives the animals and insects, too, like the digger wasp, that “instinct.” It is God, of course, who has created all things. The Bible says, “and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And this little digger wasp is only one of the millions and millions of creatures and things all over the world that God has created.