7 ■^ [Januarj' 



COREESPOE"DE]^ CE 



WASPS 



Mr 0. H. Latter {Natural Science, vol. x., p. 368-9) invites information on the 

 snbject of the effect of climatic influences on wasps, and as the past summer was 

 certainly a remarkable one in this respect, perhaps the following observations may be 

 worth publishing : — 



My experience here agi-ees with Mr Latter's to some extent, but not entirely. 

 Queens were fairly abundant in May, but from the time the last queen disappeared till 

 the beginning of September I don't think I saw two workers except from a single nest 

 of Vespa vorvegictt, which was taken in a hedge. But in my diary on September 4, I 

 have the following entry : — " Wasps, which have been extraordinarily scarce this year, 

 have suddenly become very abundant in the house, though seldom seen outside." This 

 was during a spell of unusually cold weather for early September. 



As to the climatic causes which produced the summer scarcity, it is not very 

 obvious how the wet of the winter of 1896-7 could have affected the hibernating 

 queens, as Mr Latter suggests, because he says they were abundant in spring ; more- 

 over, they generally hibernate in places where they are safe from rain. It is generally 

 supposed that a cold spring is destructive to the queens, with the natural consequence 

 of a scarcity of workers in the summer. But Mr R. Newstead, F.E.S., who has paid 

 much attention to wasps, writes me that he finds in his notes that "in 1889 wasps 

 were exceptionally abundant in Denbighshire and Cheshire." It will be seen from the 

 annexed table of temperatures (wliich are from corrected instruments in a Stevenson 

 screen in my garden) and rainfall, that the spring of 1889 was on the whole rather 

 colder and very much wetter than that of 1897, April in particular being the wettest 

 I have recorded in eighteen vears. 



1889 

 1893 

 1897 

 Average of 17 years 41 "1 



It would seem, therefore, that climatic influences do not altogether account for the 

 abundance or scarcity of wasps, still less for their late appearance this year. A satis- 

 factory explanation is still wanted. Alfred 0. Walker. 

 Nant y Glyn, Colwyn Bay. 



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