244 NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



Among the social wasps the white-faced hornet is the 

 one to study. It may seem strange to classify this arch- 

 enemy of our boyhood, whose huge paper nests have been 

 the legitimate targets for stones and later for rifle and 

 shotgun, among the beneficial insects. But Mrs. Treat 

 says of them : 



Are orchardists and gardeners aware of the untold numbers of 

 noxious insects that a colony of White-faced hornets will destroy in 

 a season ? . . . I would rather have a colony in my orchard when 

 infested with the slug, Selandria cerasi, than ever so many barrels 

 of London-purple. In the summer of 1886 I found these hornets 

 were busy from morning until night in the orchard, taking slugs from 

 the leaves, and carrying them to their young, where their nest was 

 suspended in one of the trees. Injurious Insects of the Farm and 

 Garden, p. 288. (On the other side it should be stated that where 

 grapes or peaches are raised the hornets are known to gnaw holes in 

 the fruit, and this opens the way for honeybees and may lead to great 

 injury to the crop. It thus sometimes becomes necessary to destroy 

 all .the hornets in the neighborhood before the fruit begins to ripen, 

 and this is a simple matter, since the nests are so easily found.) 



The life story of the white-faced hornet resembles that 

 of the bumblebee. The queen alone lives over winter 

 and in the spring makes her own paper and begins to 

 build the nest alone. As cells are made she lays the eggs 

 in them and feeds the larvae on finely chewed insects. To 

 see the tiny maggot-like larvae stretch themselves almost 

 out of their cells when the queen mother comes with food 

 puts one in mind of nestling birds, only it seems more 



History Survey. Of this Howard says (Insect Book, p. 18) : " No more 

 readable book on a natural history topic was ever prepared, not even 

 excepting the famous Natural History of Selbourne or the general volume 

 of Kirby and Spence's Introduction." 



