258 WASP STUDIES AFIELD 



been handled. Then it became evident that they must have 

 been lingering about this building while we looked else- 

 where for them, for on the same day that these two nests 

 were pinn'ed to the wall side by side, both of these espe- 

 cially marked wasps were found at rest on nest 8, where 

 they remained persistently for three days, when one shifted 

 to nest 15, and each held its respective nest continuously 

 thereafter. This self-appointed queen on nest 15 took care 

 of the brood, deposited eggs, fed the larvae, tore down parts 

 of the nest and rebuilt other sections. On June 29, one 

 worker emerged and on the following day another. When 

 all three of these were used in this experiment on July 8 

 the worker-mother was at least seventeen days old and the 

 workers ten and nine days old respectively. Owing to the 

 smallness of the colony, they must have had wider out-of- 

 door experiences than the workers of larger colonies. 



Here it is well to mention, in anticipation of what we 

 shall see in later experiments, that age and experience should 

 not be taken as synonymous. We think of course that 

 old workers would be more experienced than young ones, 

 but this is true only up to a certain point. When the colony 

 is growing, a supply of pulp for the nest and food for the 

 many young mouths makes intensive work for the small 

 number of workers. After the season has passed its height, 

 or the young are few in number, with an abundance of 

 workers, they may spend more and more time on the nest, 

 and when occasionally they fly abroad, they remain in the 

 general vicinity of the nest seeking liquid refreshment. Fi- 

 nally, in the early autumn, one sees the cells entirely devoid 

 of young, and workers, males and later females, clinging 

 languidly to the carcass of a nest. 



But now, to resume the narrative of Experiment VII : the 

 three pioneers on nest 15 were released with the others at 

 the mail-box at 10: 30 o'clock. All three of these returned 



