Rural vSchool Leaflet 



1277 



A mason wasp 



to her ncsl and packs it into the far end. vShe captures more spiders 

 and packs them away until the nest is fairly full; then she lays her 

 egg in the cell and walls it up 

 — spiders, egg, and all. From 

 the egg hatches a white grub, 

 for the young of all wasps arc Xr-— 

 grublike creatures. The little 

 grub starts in at once to eat 

 the helpless spiders and eats 

 heartily, like most young crea- 

 tures, until it has devoured all 

 the spider meat so miraculously i 

 preserved for its vise. It then 

 changes to a pupa, and later 

 changes to a wasp and gnaws its way out into the world. 



The mason wasps build jug-shaped nests fastened to twigs, and pro- 

 vision them with caterpillars. The digger wasps make holes in the ground 

 for their nests and provision them with caterpillars or grasshoppers. 

 The carpenter wasps excavate tunnels in deadwood or in the pith of 

 shrubs and use various insects for the food of their young. There are 

 many solitary wasps that use any cavity which they happen to find already 

 made, but they all have the peculiar way of preserving the insect meat 

 fresh for the food of their young. The sting of the solitary wasps gives 

 a person little pain and is very different from the sting of a 3'ellow jacket. 



The social zvasps. — The social 

 wasps also are divided into 

 many species and include those 

 known as yellow jackets and 

 hornets — a large species being 

 the white-faced black hornet, 

 much feared e\'en by brave 

 boys. The social wasps fold 

 their wings peculiarly; each 

 wing is folded lengthwise, like 

 a fan, and extends down on 

 each side of the body when at 

 rest, instead of being closed 

 above the back as is the case with 

 the solitary wasps and the bees. 

 The story of the yellow jacket 



The mud daubers, solitary wasps 



will ilhistrate the habits of all the social wasps. The queen mother 

 survives the winter in some protected place, and in the spring builds 



