346 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nest was replaced by one that was finished, went on building until it 

 was half again as high as it should have been. In Polistes it seems 

 that the very success with which these first unfoldings of the feeding 

 instinct meet, serves to stamp it into a useful habit. If the worker is at 

 home, with the feeding larvse at hand to seize the proffered bit, all goes 

 well, and it becomes henceforth an efficient member of its community. 

 But remove it, and so interfere with the normal unfolding of the 

 reaction, and the wasp soon disregards the food altogether or contents 

 itself with a few perfunctory turns and squeezes. 



Not that the wasp has any idea of performing a service for the 

 benefit of its kind. I have seen a young neuter gnaw a piece out of the 

 side of a dead wasp larva fallen from its cell, and turning, offer it as 

 food to the mouth of the self same larva. More than this, I once 

 observed a neuter attack a live larva and, after she had cut out and 

 crushed a fair-sized piece of its body, come back eight times in the 

 course of her examination of the cells of the nest to this larva, which 

 had naturally died in the operation, and offer it this part of its own 

 body with the evident expectation that it would be seized and eaten. 

 The eighth time she dropped the piece on the face of the dead larva 

 and went away with an air of 'duty well done' which was comical to 

 behold. There can be little doubt that the normal repetition of the 

 reflex perfects it, so that finally the process is quicker and easier than 

 at first ; and in this sense the little worker learns, but thus far I have 

 had no evidence that it gains anything by the example of its elders. 



One other note on the feeding habit may be of interest. Through- 

 out the social Hymenoptera the male is the drone of the colony and 

 usually among the solitary wasps the work of excavating or otherwise 

 constructing and storing the nest devolves entirely on the female. Mr. 

 and Mrs. Peckham recount cases of cooperation of the male with the 

 female of Trypoxylon to the extent of guarding the nest and even 

 taking the spiders as they were brought by the female and packing 

 them properly away. In one colony under observation this fall, the 

 males eagerly took portions of dead larvse from one another, and 

 crushed and turned them in their mandibles; and, in one instance, 

 when the malaxation was complete, one of them carried it over the nest 

 in the same searching manner as the female, and finally fed it to a 

 larva. This is the only recorded instance among the Vespidse known 

 tc me, but it is likely further careful observations would show similar 



aberrations of instinct. 



The Locality Study. 



Several days usually elapse before the young Polistes makes its first 

 essay into the world. When it does appear, the impulse to fly is strong, 

 though in most cases it soon spends itself. That is, if in captivity, the 

 wasp will repeatedly beat itself against its prison walls and steadfastly 



