ANIMAL REPUTATION. 97 



Nevertheless it is pointed out in other chapters how it 

 commits mistakes and exhibits stupidity for instance, in 

 constructive skill and in way-finding to its own hive and 

 we might record against it many other defects of character, 

 mental or moral. Huber tells us that bees are directed by 

 their queen, and if she is lost, they return to their hive 

 incapable of any kind of reorganisation. They are, more- 

 over, liable to mental confusion, to panic, to what has been 

 variously described as a sort of temporary epidemic excite- 

 ment, delirium, or mania, in or prior to swarming. Agitation, 

 disorder, aimless movements, general tumult, occur ; there is 

 forgetfulness of their ordinary work or duty ; nurses become 

 inattentive ; the guard deserts, and even assaults or insults 

 the queen. Again Lubbock has quite recently shown that 

 bees are characterised by a certain kind or degree of stu- 

 pidity, a lack of ready observation, even when their own per- 

 sonal interests are concerned in regard, for instance, to the 

 discovery of honey. 



On the other hand, the wasp suffers from an evil reputa- 

 tion it does not deserve. Homer, in his ' Iliad/ book xxi., 

 addresses the 



"Wasp ! front of impudence, and past all bounds audacious ; 



and from the earliest ages to the present day it has been 

 regarded as the type of everything in the human character 

 that is acrid, ill-natured, spiteful, revengeful. Hence we 

 speak of the ' waspishness ' of an irritable, unamiable man, 

 whose society is to be avoided. But, so far from being a 

 sort of insect Ishmael, ready with its sting on all occasions, 

 for the benefit or injury of friend and foe alike, the wasp 

 is one of those apparently unpromising animals that will 

 respond to and repay man's kindness and attention by 

 becoming both tractable and affectionate. 



Sir John Lubbock has shown us that the wasp, or certain 

 wasps, can be tamed by a little trouble on man's part. No 

 credit, moreover, is popularly given to it for its skill and per- 

 severance as a paper-maker and nest-builder, for its division 

 of labour and system of promotion (Ormerod), for the energy 

 and adroitness with which it hunts its prey, for its desperate 



