NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



whitish-grey sausage (Fig. 24). Twenty or more combs may be 

 superimposed, and their edges are so firmly knit into the cover that 

 the wasps have to make special gangways in the combs in order 

 that they may creep from one to the other. At the bottom the 

 covering has a conical point, and at the vertex of the cone is the 

 entrance to the nest. 



The nest of another wasp looks like a Jaca-fruit (Fig. 24). This 

 nest, as large as a man's head, is covered with spines, and presents 

 a most uncanny appearance when seen amidst the boughs of a tree. 

 As builders, the Wasps seem to learn from other creatures; at all 



events, they build a nest that is not 

 too incongruous with their surround- 

 ings. Thus, Ducke saw some wasps' 

 nests hanging amidst the bag-shaped 

 nests of the Checheou, which had the 

 same elongated form, while other 

 nests, in the neighbourhood of spheri- 

 cal ants' nests, had assumed the same 

 shape. 



The Wasps feed their offspring on 

 the flesh of masticated insects, which 

 they disgorge into the mouths of the 

 larvae. The adult insects, however, are 



Fig. 24.-Left, nest of the Paste- ^^^7 ^^^d of sweet food, as Europeans 

 board-wasp, Chartergus char- are Only too well aware. In South 

 tarius. Right, the same cut open. America there are even Honey Wasps, 



Between them, a Keel -tailed 1 • 1 . u -4.1, 11 ^r 



, . , r, 1 rr. 1 u- which storc up honey in the cells 01 



Lizard. Below, a nest 01 roiybia ^ ' 



scutellarius {greatly reduced) their nests ; and this honey is eaten by 



human beings, although while certain 

 poisonous flowers are blooming it is injurious to man. There are 

 likewise wasps which, according to the cHmate of their home, live 

 now on honey, now on insects; a proof of the adaptability of 

 instinct. 



The Bees have evolved along similar lines. They feed their brood 

 not on animal food, but on vegetable substances; and as we have 

 seen in Chapter XII, they brush off the pollen of flowers with special 

 brushes aflixed to their legs or abdomens, which retain the yellow 

 dust. The higher forms, moreover, have on their legs spoon-shaped 

 depressions or "bread-baskets" in which they collect pollen, so that 



294 



