WILDWOOD WAYS 



then began eagerly chewing fibre from a 

 gray and bare dead limb near by. She 

 chewed this and when it was softened to 

 a pulp she flew straight to the berry bush 

 and began her long summer's work. 

 Laboring patiently she made and brought 

 enough of the paper pulp moistened with 

 her own saliva to form a nest half the 

 size of an egg containing just a few cells 

 in a single comb that was horizontal and 

 opened downward. In these she laid an 

 egg each, worker's eggs. 



Always the first brood is of workers 

 only, and it would seem that the mother 

 hornet is able by some strange necro- 

 mancy to lay an egg which shall produce, 

 as she wills, a worker, a drone or another 

 queen, for the hornet hive, like that of 

 the honey-bee, has the three varieties. 

 While these eggs hatch she completes the 

 nest and then begins feeding the funny 

 36 



