2l6 THE WOODLANDS. 



appears with her crop full of fluid, she becomes 

 immediately a centre of attraction. Two or three 

 gather round her, and take up the fluid as she 

 gradually lets it drop out on the upper surface of 

 the comb. Then the larvae are visited in their cells^ 

 and take their food in the most sisterly way, from 

 mouth to mouth, till the supply is exhausted, and 

 the nurse is at liberty to go away and replenish 

 her crop. The solid food which is brought in cannot 

 be so easily distributed, but, however it is portioned 

 out, there is never any quarrelling. Strong as 

 the instinct is in wasps to snatch and hold their 

 own against all the rest of the world, yet no 

 feeling of resentment seems to be aroused by the 

 loss of their prey. Once gone, whether to friend 

 or foe, it is lost, and they make no angry attempts to 

 recover it 



A butcher often revenged himself on the wasps 

 which stole his meat, by clipping their wings. Long 

 practice, with a sharp pair of scissors, had made 

 him so dexterous that he could snip off a wing with- 

 out interrupting the wasp at her work. When the 

 wasp had cut off a piece of meat she tried to fly 

 away with it, but finding she could not fly, thought 

 the piece was too large to carry, and cut it in 

 half; and so she went on, cutting the meat smaller 

 and smaller, as long as the butcher would let her, 

 attributing her inability to fly to the size of her 

 burden, not to the mutilation of her wings. 1 



Although, in their popular aspect, the ants, bees r 



1 Ormerod's "Natural History of Wasps," p. 253. 



