530 The Outline of Science 



the fully formed young wasp does, if it has safely passed through 

 its head-downwards larval and pupal stages, is to crawl about 

 and visit the grubs, tapping them on the head till they emit a 

 tiny drop of fluid, which the young wasp licks greedily. Then 

 it is ready to help its mother with the housework, and in a few 

 days is strong enough to go out on foraging expeditions. The 

 mother wasp also visits the grubs for this delectable drop. 



How the Wasp Works and Dies 



The young wasp's duties at first consist mainly of paper- 

 making and building, for the nest is continually growing. She 

 works backwards so that she does not tread on the newly applied 

 pulp, and she moulds her material to the proper thickness, test- 

 ing it with her feelers. But after a week or two her salivary 

 glands are exhausted, so that she has to give up the manufacture 

 of paper and turn to the older wasp's task of caring for the 

 young, feeding them with the soft parts of insects and occasional 

 sips of fruit-juice or nectar, and cleaning them with care. So 

 through the summer the busy life of the community goes on. 

 The queen has laid thousands of eggs, and a great army of her 

 daughters is engaged in enlarging the nest which may now 

 have seven or eight tiers or combs enclosed in a great ball of 

 grey paper in keeping it scrupulously clean, and in caring for 

 the rising generations. Some of these workers, though they are 

 never impregnated, may occasionally lay eggs, which, like the 

 unfertilised eggs of the queen, invariably develop into males. 



As summer wanes, the workers build larger cells in the 

 lower combs. These are the royal nurseries in which a brood of 

 perfect females, not sterile workers, and males are reared. On 

 this brood the future of the race depends. A few weeks, and a 

 great change takes place summer is still here and the wasp 

 colony is at the height of its prosperity, a healthy, active com- 

 munity; then the chill finger of autumn passes over it, and the 

 first shiver marks the beginning of the decline of the colony. 



