418 SPECIAL SENSES OF WASPS. 



So far as these observations go, it would seem that 

 F. fusca takes no notice of these seeds, but that they 

 really are under certain circumstances carried off by 

 Lasius nigeu 



Wasps. 



Mr. and l\Irs. Peckham have published in the 

 'Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Wis- 

 consin' ' a very interesting pnper on the special senses 

 of wasps, and their conclusions concur closely with 

 mine. 



It appears from their observations that some wasps 

 stay out all night and return early in the morning, 

 before the others begin coming out. For instance, on 

 August 18, the first wasps left the nest at 7.25; ten, 

 however, had already returned, three of them before 

 5 A.M. It appears from their observations that the 

 average time a wasp is absent from the nest, that is, 

 the average length of each excursion, is forty-three 

 minutes. They observe that this may appear incon- 

 sistent with my observations, when the trips were 

 shorter and more numerous, one of my wasps having 

 paid me 116 visits in fifteen hours and a half. But, as 

 they justly observe, the cases are not comparable. My 

 wasps and theirs were like Jacob and Ishmael — mine 

 had everything ready prepared for them, theirs had to 

 hunt for themselves. 



As regards the sense of hearing, they repeated some 

 of my experiments with the same results. They seem 

 to consider that as regards the sense of colour their 

 conclusions are somewhat at variance with mine. 



As regards the supposed sense of direction they 

 gay 2 ; — « Sir John Lubbock, in dealing with the sense 



« April 1887. 



» Froo, Nat. EM. Soe. Wiioontin, April 1887, p. 113. 



