September, 1918] 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



49 



continually enlarged by the addition of concentric 

 rings of cells, and new layers are built, each sus- 

 pended by a strong stalk from the layer above; until 

 the nest may consist of a casing of eight or nme 

 sheets of paper a foot or more in diameter, contaming 

 half a dozen layers of comb, and sheltering thousands 

 of wasps. Apparently only the younger wasps 

 (distmguished by their smooth perfect wings from 

 the older workers whose wings have become frayed) 

 are capable of paper-making, they alone secreting 

 the necessary mucus in sufficient quantity. Unlike 

 the slothful drones of the honey bee, the male wasps, 

 who appear with the young queens in the later 

 broods, take an active part in the affairs of the 

 colony, and gather food and care for the young as 

 industriously as their sisters, the professional workers. 



Our wasps cannot be accused of food-hoarding. 

 They use their comb as a nursery only, and never 

 lay up supplies in it, like the honey bees. They take 

 no thought for the morrow, but trust to Providence 

 every morning for their daily bread. And a re- 

 markably comprehensive taste in victuals must make 



it comparatively easy for Providence to cater for 

 them, their bill of fare ranging from flower nectar 

 that most ethereal of foods to the gross corruption 

 of rotten fish. 



The colony's activities diminish with the cooler 

 weather of autumn, but the routine of the nest con- 

 tinues to the last. Winter always seems to surprise 

 them, as death does mankind; and frozen larvae and 

 pupae as well as the bodies of the last few faithful 

 workers are generally to be found in the nests in the 

 winter. Before the cold weather, the young queens 

 mate with the males, presumably from other nests, 

 and crawl away into crevices to wait for the 

 spring. But the courageous tireless paper-makers and 

 foragers, who wrought, single-thoughted for the 

 community's good, from dawn to dark the summer 

 through, all perish with the first severe frost. And 

 now the craven naturalist, who did not dare to 

 approach within many yards of the nest while its 

 fearless defenders were alive, can carry it home in 

 a cheap triumph, as a trophy for his room. 



TOURMALINE FROM MACDONALD ISLAND, BAFFIN LAND. 



By a. Ledoux, Toronto. 



A small crystal of tourmaline was associated with 

 the minerals from Baffin Land described by Prof. 

 T. L. Walker.'^ This crystal is about six mm. 

 long and four mm. wide. It is dark bottle-green by 

 transmitted light, black by reflected light. The 

 antilogous pole is broken, the other one shows some 

 very fine faces. Following Dana's orientation, they 

 correspond to the upper half forms of: the positive 

 rhombohedron of the first order, p, (lOTl); the 

 negative diombohedrons of the first order, o, (2201) 

 and e, (I 102) j_the positive scalenohedrons u, (3251) 

 and q, (I 1.5.16.2). In the vertical zone there are 

 several prisms, the one most developed being a 

 positive trigonal prism of the first order, m, (lOfO) ; 

 the edges of this prism are replaced by other small 

 prism faces, belonging to the negative trigonal prism 

 of the first order m', (1010); the hexagonal prism 

 of the second order a, (M20) ; the positive ditrigonal 

 prism k, (3120). The unequal development of the 

 various prism faces gives to the crystal the appear- 

 ance of a trigonal prism with rounded edges. 



*Minerals from Baffin Land. The Ottawa 

 Xaturali.^t. 1915, p. 63. 



:rrL 



Fig. 1. 



A projection of the crystal on the plane 0001 is 

 given on Fig. I. The measurements were made 

 by a two-circle reflecting goniometer: they are 

 indicated in the following table and may be 

 compared with the calculated angles </> and p 

 as given by Goldschmidt in his Winkeltabellen. 



