SOME SOCIAL WASPS 265 



find their way home. It was our intention to deprive them 

 of the use of their eyes or antennae, and then test their abil- 

 ity to make return flights which normal individuals had 

 proved themselves capable of making. The antennae were 

 removed in part or whole, one or both. To take such ad- 

 vantage of the fascinating creatures which seem almost pets, 

 is degrading indeed ; one could do no more, and the further 

 trick of blinding the eyes of such highly endowed beings 

 was abandoned. 



Experiment XI a 



July 23. The object of this experiment was to test the 

 ability of antennaeless wasps, as compared with normal 

 individuals, to make the homing flight. For this purpose, 

 we desired a random sample of the population, from which 

 all the naturally unfit individuals were eliminated. This 

 end we accomplished by merely sending a lot of marked- 

 wasps on the flight from the mail-box and then taking those 

 which were successful in this one-eighth-mile flight for fur- 

 ther experimentation. It seemed a poor reward indeed for 

 their faithfulness and merit merely to be permitted again 

 to make the involuntary journey plus mutilations, or rather 

 minus parts of the antennae. 



All of these unmutilated wasps were taken between 8 and 

 9 o'clock, marked, carried to the mail-box in the usual man- 

 ner and liberated at 9 : 45 a. m. 



Three workers were taken from nest 10. The queen from 

 this colony had been lost on June 20, but the workers had 

 done wonderfully well, and, under their care, the nest had 

 reached very fine proportions. Under these circumstances, 

 it is not surprising that these three workers had returned to 

 the nest by the time we arrived to examine it at 1 1 : 30. 



Nest 26 contributed three workers and a queen. We 

 suspect that the workers may have been young, because the 



