CHAPTER XXVII 



THE BLACK REED- W ASP 



Trypoxylon cinereohirtum Cam. 



Where man has felled the primitive forest, obliterating 

 nature's labors of half a thousand years, he leaves a wound 

 that is long in healing. Just as a 'wound in the flesh leaves 

 a scar that stands out distinct from its surroundings, so the 

 forest heals its injury with a new vegetation, distinct from 

 itself, but a mask nevertheless to the ghastly wound lying 

 beneath. 



We call the mask secondgrowth. It is made up of trum- 

 pet trees, weakly shoots from fallen forest giants, great 

 waves of razor-grass, briars, various types of undergrowth 

 and here and there a patch of canes whose hollow stems are 

 the natural nesting sites of the black reed-wasps. 



Abandoning their natural habitat for the advantages 

 afforded by Kalacoon, they flocked to our hospitable board, 

 setting up their abodes in our pen-holders, in spools, nail 

 holes, in the handle of my shaving glass and in fact, in any- 

 thing that suggested a hollow tube with a tiny diameter. 



To the general rule among Hymenoptera the black 

 reed-wasps are an exception. That is to say, they are neith- 

 er social, in the usual community sense of the word, nor 

 are they solitary. They came in mated pairs in search of 

 nesting sites, inspecting all the best holes in the house with 

 great care and deliberation. Like so many newly married 

 couples, filled with the enthusiasm of a novel project, they 

 roamed about among the improved property that Kalacoon 

 offered. To facilitate my studies of their life history, I placed 

 several pieces of glass tubing, three or four inches long and 

 a quarter of an inch in diameter, about the laboratory. I 



