4U TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



sonic of the cells are without them — these along the 

 edges." 



"The white caps are the 'seals' placed upon the 

 cells when the larvai spin into pupa.\ Observe that 

 many of these caps are quite cut around the edges, 

 showing that tne young wasps have cut their way out. 

 This specimen was gathered late in the summer, and as 

 it lay upon a table in my library I could now and then 

 hear the rasping of the wasps' mandibles as the}^ 

 gnawed the seal away, and ever and anon would see a 

 youngling creep out of a cell by pushing up the cap 

 like a lid, and then feebly crawl off and stretch its 

 wings. But most of the inmates died within the cells. 

 Perhaps the dry, warm air of my study was unfavora- 

 ble to their escape, or they may have needed the jaws 

 of their nurses to aid their egress." 



''Are these caps made of paper, too ?" asked Hugh. 



" No, they are in part a covering which the larva; 

 themselves spin, and in part, probablj-, a sort of wax, 

 secreted and applied by the workers, very much as 

 with the wax-workers among bees. I leave you now to 

 study the habits of these ringed wasps for j'ourselves, 

 when next summer comes, and turn to another insect 

 belonging to the same group of social wasps. Here is 

 a hornet's nest, the most famous of our American 

 paper-makers — Yespa macidaia. " 



The specimen, which had been secured by the ener- 

 getic search of Joe and Harry, was eighteen inches 

 long and a foot in diameter at the thickest part. It was 

 a pear-shaped structure, whose V)ulkler end was placed 



