Wasps 



honey wasps are now brought together into one genus, which is 

 called Nectarinia. 



The true social wasps, nearly all of which in the United 

 States belong to the Genera Vespa and Polistes, form communi- 

 ties much like those of the social bees. Their communities, 

 however, are not so perfect and are not so persistent as are 

 those of the true honey bee or of the ants, but resemble more 

 nearly those of the bumblebee. There is a form known as the 

 worker, just as with the social bees, and the workers here, as in 

 the other cases, are undeveloped females. Here also, as with 

 the social bees, these undeveloped females or workers may lay 

 eggs which invariably produce males or drones. 



Most of our social wasps make paper combs and nests. 

 They are in fact the original paper-makers, and it is quite within 

 the possibilities that the paper-making idea in the human species 



was gained from 

 the observation of 

 these insects. Their 

 paper, however, 

 is made from wood 

 pulp a late de- 

 velopment in the 

 human scale of in- 

 genuity. They are 

 particularly fond ol 

 scraping the frayed 

 wood fibre from old weather-beaten fence boards and from the 

 sides of old unpainted buildings. These wood fibres are macer- 

 ated with their saliva, and a pasty wood pulp is thus formed with 

 which the nests are constructed. 



In our consideration of the preceding group of wasps, we said 

 something about individuality among these creatures and its in- 

 fluence upon theories of instinct. In the social wasp also at least 

 one observation seems to show that individuals in the face of an 

 emergency previously unknown to the species readily adapt 

 themselves to new conditions. This observation was made by 

 Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt, of Kirkwood, Mo., who found that in a 

 vineyard where the grape clusters were inclosed in paper bags to 

 prevent destruction by insects the social wasps found that the 

 damp and rotting paper bags were perfectly adapted to their nest- 



26 



Fig. 14. Spring nest of Polistes rubiginosus. 

 (After Riley.) 



