WASPS, SOCIAL AND SOLITARY 



nests in deep repose ; and although the Vespa wasps that 

 nest in the ground sometimes come home late in the twi- 

 light, we have never seen them work after it was really 

 dark. Polistes fusca may be said to share our cottage, 

 so thickly does she hang her combs under the shelter of 

 our porches, and from observations taken at all hours 

 we know that she is quiet through the night. Sir John 

 Lubbock, in "Ants, Bees, and Wasps," speaks of the 

 great industry of wasps. He has known them to work 

 from early morning until dusk without any interval for 

 rest or refreshment; but here was our little Crabro 

 toiling from three in the afternoon of July twenty- 

 seventh, through that night and the day and night fol- 

 lowing until nine o'clock on the morning of the twenty- 

 ninth, a period of forty-two consecutive hours with 

 one intermission of ten minutes on the morning of the 

 twenty-eighth. Surely she takes the palm for industry, 

 not only from other wasps, but from the ant and the bee 

 as well. 



The nest was completed, but the work of storing it 

 remained to be done. The wasp flew away at nine 

 o'clock, and ten minutes later came back with some- 

 thing, we knew not what, for she dropped into her hole 

 so quickly that she was out of sight almost before we 

 knew she was there. Two minutes later she came up, 



112 



