IV 

 SOCIAL LIFE OF WASPS 



SURELY in the jetsam of the autumn's ebb- 

 tide there is no more eloquent item than that 

 wasps' nest in the gooseberry bush empty since 

 the morning frosts of early September. Most 

 people hail "the last of the wasps" with consider- 

 able satisfaction, and even their champions must 

 admit that there are limits to their relevancy; 

 yet we never see their autumnal dying-off with- 

 out giving them our admiration. Laying aside a 

 colossally absurd prejudice, who can fail to ap- 

 preciate the workmanship of that familiar hanging 

 edifice, often as big as one's head, an elegant house 

 of paper, fabricated from salivated shavings planed 

 from fences and disbarked branches? There we 

 see story hung from story, with perfect economy 

 of space and security of ventilation; a compacted 

 framework of hundreds of cradles rivaling the 

 honeycomb of hive-bees; and outside it all a series 

 of rainproof and windproof envelopes. 



Some biologists have said that animals use matter 

 constructively inside their bodies, whereas man 

 brings matter into his service extra-corporeally. 

 This is going much too far, however, for there are 

 many of the more adventurous animal types but 



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