274 NATURAL SCIENCE. Oct., 1893. 



and on no one day throughout the four months did the fall exceed 

 0-34 inch. 



It is not easy to conceive weather better suited than the above 

 to the well-being of wasps. The impregnated females emerge from 

 winter quarters early in the year, generally making their first 

 appearance during March. The occurrence of frost, snow, heavy 

 rains, and the like during April or even May, cannot fail to destroy 

 enormous numbers of females and their first few grubs lying in the 

 small nests built of delicate " wasp-paper " by the queens themselves. 

 Severe weather setting in after the commencement of the nests must 

 be fatal to tree- and ground-wasps alike. This year after the severe 

 weather of early spring had once gone it never returned. Hence the 

 females, tempted from hibernation by warmer days, met with no 

 disaster either in their persons or their habitations, and thus an 

 unusually large number of nests became successfully established. 

 Further than this, the mean temperature for the summer months has 

 been decidedly above the average, and many animals and flowering 

 plants made their appearance several weeks sooner than is customary, 

 thus affording a plentiful supply of food material to the omnivorous 

 worker wasps. The drought appeared to affect the wasps in two ways, 

 advantageously by causing great and rapid increase of Aphides 

 whose secretions the wasps keenly appreciate, in addition to favouring 

 the multiplication of flies, earwigs, etc., on which wasps to a great 

 extent subsist ; detrimentally by rendering it difficult to supply an 

 adequate amount of moisture to the growing grubs. In some nests 

 which were taken by chloroforming, I found numerous grubs shrivelled 

 up and many of the wasps captured in the open were unusually 

 small. This lack of water was very clearly shown by the way in 

 which wasps swarmed round plants which were regularly watered so 

 that the leaves and earth were constantly moist ; in such cases wasps 

 could be seen at all times of day greedily sipping up drops of water, 

 or getting it from the wettest earth beneath the leaves. 



From an economical point of view, a word in favour of the much- 

 abused wasp is due. As scavengers, wasps undoubtedly confer great 

 benefit upon us ; the rapidity with which they remove the flesh from 

 dead animals requires to be seen to be believed. On several occasions 

 I exposed dead mice in order to notice the ravages produced by the 

 wasps, and in each instance every particle of soft material was com- 

 pletely removed from the bones in the course of two days. 



It is never wise to prophesy, but there are indications of what 

 may be expected next year ; the drones and young females have now 

 been on the wing for some time, having appeared earlier than usual. 

 This renders it probable that many females will be destroyed before 

 they search out convenient spots for hibernation, so that already the 

 balance is probably being readjusted, and unless the spring and early 

 summer of 1894 prove repetitions of this year, there is no cause to 

 anticipate a recurrence of the plague. 



Charterhouse, Godalming. Oswald H. Latter. 



