MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 197 



in various small moth larvas, then more clay and more worms, until the 

 iiole was filled to the top, and neatly closed with a cap of clay. A 

 second and third, to the number of nine spools, were provided and filled, 

 I am fain to think by the self-same insect, which no doubt congratu- 

 lated herself on the good fortune that made her neit building so easy. 

 An examination after she had finished her labors, disclosed two cells in 

 each of the smaller and three in the larger spools. The latter had been 

 firmly masoned to the window with the vespic mortar. Six or seven 

 larvii3, mostly of destructive species, were compactly stowed in each 

 cell, none of them dead, but all sutlBciently paralyzed to remain motion- 

 less, and upon the uppermost one was attached this single, pearly 

 white egg, from which in a few days the wasp baby would hatch. 



The most remarkable of all improvements on time honored insect 

 methods, however, came to my knowledge during the last two summers. 

 The social wasps, including not only the bald-faced hornet fVesjya 

 maculataj and the yellow-jackets ('V. germanica et sp.J, but several spe- 

 cies of the genus PoUstes, which build but a single set of cells unen- 

 closed, form their cells, walls and roofs, as is well known, of a sort of 

 tough weather proof-paper. From time immemorial the materials for 

 this paper have been collected from well-seasoned rails or boards, or 

 other dressed river wood, and it has often afforded me much enter- 

 tainment to watch the deft and rapid motions of these insects when 

 cutting and manipulating the fibers which were,, so to speak, chewed 

 up and later spread out into sheets to form paper. Until within the last 

 two years, no change had ever been reported in this method : but in 

 the summer of '91, a few of the individuals of the large rust-red social 

 wasp f PoUstes rubiginosusj seemed to discover a "more excellent way," 

 at least a more convenient one. 



In common with many grape-growers of this section of the coun- 

 try, we had been for a number of years in the habit of enclosing our clus- 

 ters as soon as set in paper bags, for the purpose of excluding the 

 spores of the black-rot fLcvstidia hidwelliij. Early in the summer I 

 had noticed that the bags used did not seem to last as in former years; 

 that the upper, more exposed side soon began to look very thin and 

 weather-worn, and to be more or less perforated. I had spoken of this 

 .and attributed it to the poor quality of the paper. Shortly after, my 

 sister reported that she had detected a large red wasp at work upon a 

 bag, apparently tearing off the fibers with a view, as she supposed, of 

 getting at the enclosed fruit. Knowing that the latter was still hard 

 and green, and suspecting the object of the insect, I began an investi- 

 gation, and soon made the interesting observation that the wasp had 

 apparently discovered that particles of ready-made paper could be 

 worked up into nest material, much more rapidly than raw wood fiber. 



