SOME SOCIAL WASPS 257 



case, as in others to follow, that the worker wasp which is 

 old and experienced enough to escape or show bellicosity 

 when taken has by that time the ability to return to the 

 nest. 



Nest 13. This queen was lost on June 21 in Experiment 

 III, and on this date some half-dozen orphans had charge 

 of the nest. So alert were they that only one of them could 

 be taken. It never returned to the nest. 



Nest 15. From this nest we have some interesting data. 

 The queen was lost in Experiment IV on June 25. The 

 queenless nest with its potential life was taken from the barn 

 on June 27 and pinned to the wall in the laboratory near 

 the table where we could watch the maneuvers of the young 

 when they emerged. It also happened that on or about 

 June 22, we had been experimenting on wasps in applying 

 paint to various parts of the body and observing its effect 

 upon the insects. On that day, two workers, probably a day 

 or two old, were taken from nest 12 in the barn, carried into 

 the laboratory directly in front of the barn, at a distance of 

 fifty feet. There, two dots of paint were applied to the 

 pro-thorax of each, and after noting the method of handling, 

 their ability to clean off the paint, etc., they were liberated, 

 seven hours later, by being allowed to walk about on the 

 sill of the open window nearest the barn. We expected that 

 of course they would find their way back to the nest in 

 the barn directly in front of the window and only fifty feet 

 distant, but somehow these workers did not find nest 12. 

 We little suspected that this new environment, as they 

 could see it through the wire fly-cage during the seven hours 

 of imprisonment and their subsequent freedom about the 

 room, was making such an impression upon their senses that 

 they would regard it as their habitat rather than the barn. 

 Five days later, orphan nests 8 and 15 were pinned to the 

 wall near the laboratory table where these workers had 



