Rural School Leaflet 



11S7 



creatures, until it has devoured all the spider meat so miraculously 

 preserved for its use. 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 dead wood 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 this peculiar way of preserving the insect meat 

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

 little pain to us and is very different from 

 the sting of a yellow-jacket. 



The Social wasps also are made up of 

 many species and include those known kA. 

 as yellow- jackets and hornets — a large 

 species being the white-faced black 

 hornet, much feared even by brave boys. 

 The Social wasps fold their wings pecul- 

 iarly: 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 will 

 illustrate the habits of all the Social 

 wasps. The queen mother survives the 

 winter in some protected place, and in 

 the spring builds a little nest of paper. She bites off bits of wood 

 and chews them into a pulp, and with this material she makes several 

 cells and surrounds them with a protecting envelope. She lays an 

 egg in each cell; these eggs hatch into little white grubs, which she 

 feeds dutifully at first with partially digested food from her own stomach 

 and then with any food that she happens to find which is acceptable to 

 them. Thus they gain their growth and each spins a little veil over its 

 cell, changes to a pupa, and later emerges as a full-grown worker ready for 

 business. These workers at once assume all the duties of the queen 

 except that of laying eggs. They enlarge the nest and feed the young 

 and protect the nest from enemies. 



Often one of these wasp nests will show several combs, one below the 

 other. They differ from the combs in a beehive in the following respects : 

 they are made of paper instead of wax; the cells open only on one side, 



Yellow-jacket atid nest 



