1897-9S.] Wasps: Their Life-History and Habits. 345 



has alighted, and there she sits as if gone to sleep : the only 

 sign of life is the jaws or mandibles working hard, making 

 pulp with the fibre she scraped off the paper. Before we 

 have been able to notice that anything was done, she is gone. 

 If we examine where she sat, we will see a small irregular 

 patch of dark-grey matter, which on becoming dry is light- 

 grey. Our queen may go on sticking patches without order 

 or apparent reason over a large surface, or she may make one 

 large patch, or she may start right off and make a small 

 column or cord of a hard material a little over half an inch 

 in length, at the end of which she forms one or three cells, in 

 which, while yet very small or shallow, she deposits in the 

 centre of each an egg. Having occupied from two to five days 

 in performing this work, in another week it will have assumed 

 the size and nearly the shape of a large walnut or small egg, 

 only a little more circular, in which there will be from ten to 

 twenty worker cells, some containing larvse, some eggs. 



In the 'Strand Magazine 'for January 1898 there is an 

 article on wasps by Grant Allen, which is very well written, 

 but should not be read by any one desiring correct information 

 regarding wasps, for he will not get it there. The three 

 drawings of the wasp's nest, of two, five, and fifteen days old, 

 have no resemblance to nests of these ages — at least, I fail to 

 see any, and I have seen hundreds, for it was at this stage 

 that I performed my experiments with them, a few of which 

 I shall now notice. One day, on opening one of my beehives, 

 I found a small wasp's- nest under the roof, which I at once 

 pulled off and dropped into my coat-pocket to examine it at 

 leisure. About half an hour after, on taking it out, I was 

 surprised to find a queen wasp inside, and the peculiar thing 

 about it was that she would not be advised to come out, but 

 went on spinning and buzzing around the small column from 

 which the cells are hung. Finding the queen so averse to 

 leave her nest, I thought if this was a general habit I would 

 be able to prove to my own satisfaction whether the wasp 

 that hung its nest from a tree or bush or any projection, 

 exposed to light and the weather, would also build its 

 nest under ground or in any other dark cavity. Upon trial, 

 I found that the majority of the queens were determined to 

 stick to their nests, so I could carry them where I chose. I 

 gathered many from trees, lintels of doors and windows, bee- 



