432 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



6. Describe the mud-dauber wasp. How large is she? What is the 

 color of her body? Of her wings? How many wings has she? Hov/ are 

 her wings folded differently from those of the yellow-jacket? Describe 

 her eyes; her antennae; her legs; her waist; her abdomen. 



7. Where did you find the wasp? How did she act? Do you think 

 that she can sting? How does she pass the winter? 



8. Do you know the mud wasps which build the little, jug-shaped 

 nests for their young? Do you know the mud wasps which utilize 

 crevices and keyholes for their nests and plaster up the opening? 



9. Do you know about the digger wasps which pack away grasshop- 

 pers or catprpillars in a hole in the ground, in which they lay their egg and 

 then cover it? 



Supplementary reading — Insect Stories, Kellogg; Wasps, Social and 

 Solitary, Peckham ; Wasps and their Ways, Morley ; The Ways of the Six- 

 footed, Comstock; Home Studies in Nature, Treat. 



THE YELLOW-JACKET 



Teacher's Story 



lY wasps are not so waspish after all when we under- 

 stand one important fact about them; i. e., 

 although they are very nervous themselves, they 

 detest that quality in others. F(jr years the 

 yellow-jackets have shared with us our meals at 

 our summer camp on the lake shore. They make 

 inquisitive tours of inspection over the viands on 

 the table, often seeming to include ourselves, and 

 coming so near that they fan our faces with their 

 wings. They usually end by selecting the 

 sweetened fruits, but they also carry off bits of 

 roast beef, pouncing down upon the meat platter 

 and seizing a tidbit as a hawk does a chicken. We always remain calm 

 during these visitations, for we know that unless we inadvertently pinch 

 one, we shall not be harmed; and it is great fun to watch one of these 

 graceful creatures poising daintily on the side of the dish lapping up the 

 fruit juice as a cat does milk, the slender, ycllovz-banded abdomen pal- 

 pitating as she breathes. Occasionally, two" desire the same place, and a 

 wrestling match ensues which is fierce while it lasts, but the participants 

 always come back to the dish unharmed. They are extra polite in their 

 manners, for after one has delved eagerlv into the fruit 

 S3^rup, she proceeds to clean her front feet by passing 

 them through her jaws, which is a wasp way of using a 

 finger bowl. 



Both yellow-jackets and the white-faced black- 

 hornets build in trees and similarly, although the paper 

 made by the yellow-jackets is finer in texture. However, 

 some species of yellow-jackets build their nests in the 

 groimd, but of similar form. The nest is of paper made 

 of bits of wood which the wasps pull off Avith their jaws 

 from weather-worn fences or boards. This wood is reduced to a pulp by 

 sahva which is secreted from the wasp's mouth, and is laid on in Httle 



.4 yeHow- 

 jacket 



