A. E. GIBBS — THE WASP INFESTATION OF 1893. 23 



shoulder of the fruit, and elcim it out thoroughly, leaving only the 

 bare skin. I have taken out 20, and sometimes more, from a single 

 fruit ; they seem to get intoxicated. Certainly, if careful, one may 

 take the whole lot one by one, and destroy them without being 

 stung. I have cleared out several in this manner without being 

 attacked. I do not know of any attack on man or beast, nor, with 

 the exception of the cases I have read about, have I ever known 

 ■wasps to attack anyone unless in self-defence. I do not consider 

 them to be half so pugnacious as bees, and personally the sting 

 from a wasp is not neaiiy so bad as that from a bee. "When 

 gathering fi-uit I have had them walk over my hands and arms and 

 never otfer to sting. A great many ways and means of destroying 

 them were advanced last season, but the most effective and least 

 dangerous is gas-tar. I have destroyed many nests, and have 

 always found this to be the safest method. If you suffocate them 

 with powder, cyanide of potassium, or anything else, the chances 

 are that some recover. To be sure of them they have to be dug 

 out, and this means labour and often disfigurement of surroundings, 

 whereas gas-tar carefully poured into the hole finds its way into 

 the nest, and does its work effectually ; only in cases where tar 

 cannot be applied would I use anything else. It is generally 

 supposed that whatever you use to exterminate the wasps must be 

 used after dark, otherwise you lose a quantity of them, but this is 

 not the case where tar can be applied, as I found out last summer. 

 I discovered a strong nest in the park here one day, and poured 

 the tar in about seven o'clock in the evening. I may here add a 

 word as to wasps attacking people. Although scores were hover- 

 ing over the hole, not one offered to attack me. Had I attempted 

 to drive them in any way I should have probably got the worst of 

 it. I besmeared the ground around the hole, and the next morning 

 it was covered with wasps which had exhausted themselves in 

 attempting to get into the nest ; the whole lot were totally de- 

 stroyed. Only two unfinished nests of tree-wasps came under my 

 observation. Some years ago, when living in Lancashire, we often 

 noticed them suspended in big rhododendron bushes." Mr. P. W. 

 Silvester, of Hedges, St. Albans, tells me that there was a wasps' 

 nest in one of his fields, and that the insects attacked the horses 

 and men so severely that he was obliged to leave a piece of land 

 unploughed until the nest had been destroyed. Mr. Silvester, like 

 most of my correspondents, complains of the destruction of his 

 plums and apples, but informs me that the peaches were not so 

 badly injured. 



Bekkhamsted. — Mr. F. Q. Lane, of The Nurseries, writes : 

 "There was here as elsewhere an enormous number of nests, 

 and we never before saw so many nests built in trees ; one in a 

 small spruce-fir was quite as large as a football, which is unusual 

 about here, the nests mostly being about the size of a cricket-ball." 



AVatford. — Dr. Brett has favoured me with the following notes : 

 — "Mr. D. Hill, of Herga, Watford, said that he destroyed about 

 seventy queen wasps in the spring of 1893, and at least twelve 



