160 The Book of Bugs. 



scalp, making 1 hypodermic injections of the fluid extract 

 of anti-laziness. It is this extract that hurts, and not the 

 mere needle-point itself. As the muscle attached to the 

 poison-bag" tears out with the sting- and keeps on working 

 automatically after the wasp is dead, it should be your 

 especial care, when stung, to pluck the thing away. 



The wasp is less fickle-tempered than the bee, and more 

 intelligent ; that is, more ready to take up with new ways 

 and so to adapt itself to surroundings. This is so because 

 it seems not quite to have found itself so completely. 

 Evidently wasps and bees are descended from the same 

 stock, for it is hard to tell some kinds of wasps from some 

 kinds of bees, except that the wasps have no brushes for 

 collecting pollen and do not grow hair baskets on their 

 legs to carry it home. The bees have gone into the 

 pollen business and have made a specialty of it. The 

 wasps have become carnivorous, or perhaps have con- 

 tinued to be carnivorous. They are fond of honey also, 

 and some kinds of wasps even store it up, but it is not a 

 first-rate article of honey in our judgment. Only the 

 shallow flowers, such as heal-all, sweet clover, and golden- 

 rod, can supply it, for its tongue is not nearly so long as 

 the bee's. It likes to visit bleeding trees in the early 

 spring to lap up the sweet sap, and it, like the bee, has 

 quite a fancy for fermented drinks ; a lady's taste, though, 

 for it prefers sweet wine, and its whisky must have 

 plenty of sugar and water in it. It grieves me to confess 

 that it frequents Nature's rum-shops a good deal, and 

 can often be seen beside fermented fruits sleeping off its 

 drunk and staggering away with an expression that all 

 too plainly says, " Oh, how my head aches! ' 



The wasp really does very little harm to any except 

 fallen fruit or such as a bird has pecked a hole in. Some- 

 times an apple on the ground will be reduced to a mere 



