i64 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



frequently asserted that she resorts to rotten posts 

 and stumps for her material; but though this may 

 be true of the hornet, it is not true of the wasp. 

 She uses perfectly sound wood, though she un- 

 doubtedly prefers wood that has been " seasoned " 

 by exposure in a cut state to growing timber. We 

 have a garden fence that is a favourite quarry for 

 the raw material of wasps' nests. In the busy 

 season you may see scores of worker wasps upon 

 it shaving off delicate films of its surface, reducing 

 it to pulp, and flying off to their nest with a pellet 

 of it. The greater portion of the fence is of oak, 

 but a smaller length is of pine ; and they take 

 from both. The pine must be the easier to work, 

 and one would expect them to restrict their atten- 

 tions to it ; but they do not. It is probable that 

 they may have different uses for the two sorts 

 of material. The photograph of a few inches of 

 the pine fence will make clear the extent of surface 

 shaved at each operation. The average width of a 

 shaved space is two millimetres, and its length 

 about ten millimetres, some longer, some shorter. 



Arrived at the nest, the worker flies to that part 

 where material may be most in request at the 

 moment, and chewing up her pellet afresh, she 

 mixes it with a gummy secretion from the glands 

 of her mouth, and then proceeds to spread it out 

 thinly as an addition to the edge of work in progress, 

 whether it be a new layer of the outer walls or the 

 lengthening of brood cells to make them agree 

 with the increasing length of growing grubs. 



