192 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
a wet ditch is not a very comfortable place to wait 
in, and wasps are more easily watched and caught 
on a smooth rail than on a bramble bush. 
Now, transferring our post of observation from the 
collecting ground to the nest itself, we may see the 
mode of applying these materials. But it is not so 
easy to find a tree-nest, where the work is open to 
observation, just when we want it. A friend tells 
me that the grocers’ boys at Bexhill amuse them- 
selves by lining wasps to their nests, just as the 
North-American Indians line bees. I never had any 
practice in this sport. It is not very easy, particu- 
larly out of doors, to slip a noose round a wasp’s 
pedicle, and fasten a tuft of cotton-wool to it, with- 
out hurting her. And where I have done this, in my 
study, the wasps have been unable to rise, thus 
hampered. The best way, to my own experience, is 
to watch for more than one wasp flymg quick and 
straight in the same track. A few minutes’ observa- 
tion will settle whether there is a wasp’s nest in the 
neighbourhood. ‘The process however is tedious, for 
the same amount of skill and patience is required to 
find wasps’ nests, when we want them, as to find 
fish, or anything else. And folks who do not love 
wasps will often have occasion to rejoice because no 
nests have been found after a morning’s search. 
But when we, or, what is more likely, some hedge- 
cutters for us, have found a tree-nest, we may carry 
on our observations a stage further. A somewhat 
cloudy day, with little or no wind, is the best for 
this purpose. The wasps may not be working so 
vigorously, but they will allow us to approach more 
closely under such circumstances, and they, as well 
