SOME SOCIAL WASPS 285 



with visions of wondrous wasp activities. Imagine our 

 surprise when not one P. annularis was to be seen, and no 

 nests on the rocks, as we had expected. Only two Polistes 

 were seen that day, and they were P. pallipes. We cannot 

 account for this strange disappearance, unless they had 

 dispersed or migrated. Several lizards were seen along 

 the railroad track at the foot of the bluff, but we cannot 

 believe that they could annihilate so large a population of 

 insects which are so well equipped for flight and defense. 

 Yet again on this date, in one crevice in the bluff which 

 seemed an ideal hibernating-nook, we found upwards of 

 fifty queens of P. annularis, dead. This shows that we 

 must count upon heavy elimination. 



The interest of this April congregation of P. annularis 

 was only increased when, on October 25, 1916, we found 

 an assemblage of one hundred or more queens behind a 

 closed shutter of an old abandoned building at Clifton Ter- 

 race, Illinois. This particular window was the most shel- 

 tered nook on the building, sunny and well protected from 

 the raw winds. We searched at all the other shutters, 

 but no wasps were behind them. Whether the love of com- 

 panionship, or the mere attraction of physical comfort had 

 drawn them thus together cannot be declared; we only 

 know that they all had the ability to congregate in the 

 warmest spot, and not one was to be found elsewhere 

 in that vicinity. The group comprised three species of 

 Polistes; perhaps seventy-five per cent of them were pal- 

 lipcs, twenty per cent annularis and five per cent bellicosus. 

 It appeared that the entire population of the neighborhood 

 was here assembled, yet there was not a male among them. 



At Raleigh, North Carolina, Brimley 12 has taken males 

 all winter, from the end of November to the end of March; 

 but, while we have looked for males during the winter, we 



12 Ent. News 19 : 107. 1908. 



