THE SOCIAL WASPS. 339 



SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE BEHAVIOR OF THE 



SOCIAL WASPS. 



BY MINNIE MARIE ENTEMAN, Ph.D. 

 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 



ITTLE has been published concerning the social wasps since de 

 -*— * Saussure wrote so interestingly of them nearly half a century 

 ago. His work is justly regarded as a classic, but unfortunately it has 

 become so rare that, nowadays, it is inaccessible to the average student, 

 and accurate knowledge of the group, save that derived from an 

 occasional disagreeable encounter with one of its members, is meager 

 indeed. Moreover, the wonderful ingenuity displayed here, and among 

 the highest Hymenoptera, the care for the young, and provisioning 

 against the rainy day have served, not only to point a moral, but to 

 credit these forms with an intelligence second only to the human. 

 Even those who adopt a purely mechanical explanation of animal 

 activities are inclined to except the bees and wasps. Mr. E. L. Thorn- 

 dike, in his general conclusions concerning the nature of animal intelli- 

 gence, makes reservations in favor of this group, while Mr. and Mrs. 

 G-. W. Peckham, in their admirable study of the solitary wasps, con- 

 trast them with the social wasps in the following terms : 



The social Hymenoptera are born into a community and their mental 

 processes may be modified and assisted by education and imitation, but the 

 solitary wasp (with rare exceptions), comes into the world absolutely alone. 

 ... It must then depend entirely upon its inherited instincts to determine the 

 form of its activities and, although these instincts are much more flexible than 

 has generally been supposed and are often modified by individual judgment and 

 experience, they are still so complex and remarkable as to offer a wide field for 

 study and speculation. 



The conclusions noted here, derived from the study of a group which is 

 among the more primitive social Hymenoptera, may then be of interest 

 as contributing somewhat to problems which are receiving anew the 

 attention of both the naturalist and the comparative psychologist. 



General Account. 

 In the tropics of the Old and New World, the family of social wasps 

 or Vespidae comprises seven genera, but only three of these, Polistes, 

 Polyoia and Vespa are represented in the United States. Of these, 

 Polyoia is the smallest and rarest, being restricted to California and 

 Florida ; Vespa is widely known as our common hornet or yellow-jacket, 



