Wasps and Such. 155 



naturalist to be surprisingly slow to learn that a glass 

 window cannot be got through. Time after time the 

 same bee that had vainly bumped against the pane and 

 had then found the other way out, tried to get through 

 the glass instead of shaping its course straight for the 

 practicable exit. But a wasp does not get fooled 

 more than once. It is for the bee-master to get used tc 

 his bees, and not his bees to him. So far as I know they 

 do not seem to regard him as a friend, but it is quite 

 possible to tame wasps, only you must be careful and not 

 mistake a wild one for a tame one. A wasp resents 

 familiarity on short acquaintance. Pastor Miiller, away 

 back in 1811, so won the confidence of a whole community 

 of them that he could cut their nest open, could even 

 take it away from them, and they would sit patiently in 

 the hive he made for them, waiting for him to bring it 

 back to them. They seemed to know that he meant well, 

 no matter how strangely he might act. 



A tame yellow jacket, kept under a tumbler, is said to 

 have turned its head and pointed its antennae at its 

 keeper whenever she appeared. I love to read of such 

 things, just as I love to see the lady in the circus put 

 her head in the lion's mouth. It fills me with admiration, 

 .but not ambition to go and do likewise. I have not the 

 slightest desire to have a pet wasp to lick honey off my 

 finger or cuddle down in my warm hand. I am friendly 

 to wasps. I always have been. Even as a boy, I could 

 not endure to see a hornet's nest disturbed. If any other 

 boy tried to destroy it with a pole, I went right away 

 from there. I would not stand by and witness such a 

 wanton attack upon the liberties of another. Some may 

 sneer at this as the policy of ' scuttle," but it is my firm 

 conviction that when you have interfered, without any call 

 to do so, and stirred up a hornet's nest, and there is nothing 



