SOCIAL ECONOMY. 245 
nest to examine, we find that, to the last, the wasps 
were still preparmg to extend their house in strict 
conformity with the instinctive rule, 
Servetur ad imum, 
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.* 
A little central comb is to be seen at the lower part 
of the nest, and the builders of cells are just a little 
mm advance of the layer of eggs. As the beginning 
of the nest was determined by the physiological 
condition of the young fertile queen and the young 
workers, so, unless physical causes interfere to bring 
about an earlier dissolution, is the end. When, at 
last, the ovaries of the parent wasp are exhausted, 
when there are no young workers to make paper, 
and no brood to be fed, then the common bond which 
held the swarm together is loosened, and the wasps 
straggle off, one by one, never to return. 
Late in the summer, when wasps are plentiful, the 
grass swarms with them, they fly listlessly along 
the ditches, or establish themselves permanently on 
the fruit-walls. To say nothing of those which 
take up their quarters on the wrong side of our 
windows, or make more direct personal advances. 
Now, I have nothing to say on behalf of these 
wasps. They are a nuisance, and a terror to all who 
have little children. They are mere stragglers, who 
have lost all feeling of good fellowship, have de- 
serted their nest, and are leading a freebooter’s life. 
But the wasps which we see flying about earlier in the 
year are not leading, by any means, a life of selfish 
indolence. As a little observation of their habits 
* Horace. ‘ Ars Poetica,’ 126. 
