432 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



This must be a real bonanza for the wasp ! But no ! 

 She glides over tlie rail with fluttering wings, and is 

 off to another place. Her actions, the reasons that 

 seem to determine her choice and final decision are as 

 incomprehensible to me as the proceedings of ladies 

 when on a shopping expedition. 



■ " At last, however, she has gathered a little ball of 

 wood-fibre ; she throws herself back upon her two 

 pairs of hind-legs, and standing thus in a semi-erect 

 posture, like a squirrel eating a nut, she adjusts the 

 pellet to her jaws with her fore-paws and flies 

 away with it to the nest. This is fastened to the 

 branches by a central stalk which is firmly tied and 

 pasted on. The stalk is usually directed upward, or 

 somewhat inclined, so that the mouth of the cells is 

 downward. The bottom parts of the cells are thus 

 upward, and as tliey are united and covered with a 

 paper floor the whole series forms a sort of hanging 

 platform. On this platform a bevy of wasp-workers 

 may usually be seen engaged in chewing up the woody 

 fibres into pulp, or preparing Avax for the cell-covers, 

 or grinding up ' pap ' for the baby grubs. "When the 

 pulp is prepared it is pasted in thin flakes on the 

 ledges of the cells, and spread and shaped chiefly by 

 the action of the mandibles, although somewhat aided 

 by the feet. A secretion from the salivarj' glands of 

 the wasp, wliich corresponds with the ' sizing ' used 

 by paper manufiicturers, helps to bind the fibrous 

 pulp into a compact mass that quickly hardens into a 

 rude but efficient ^tapier mache. 



