PAPER-MAKERS 173 



The wasp is no exponent of the eight-hours 

 movement. As soon as the sun has had time to 

 take " the raw edge " off the air the wasp is out 

 on her everlasting search for provisions or building 

 material ; and she works on until long after sunset. 

 To enable them to arrive at an estimate of a wasp's 

 daily labours, Mr. and Mrs. Peckham kept watch 

 on the entrance of a ground nest from half-past 

 four in the morning until noon, counting the wasps 

 that went out and those that came home. In 

 that time 4,534 left the nest and 3,362 returned. 

 " With all this activity there seemed to be no 

 pleasure excursions, for each one carried food 

 when returning, and took out a pellet of earth 

 when leaving." They calculated that each wasp 

 was gone about forty-three minutes. 



The British species of wasps already enumerated 

 are, as regards six of them, so similar in their 

 natural history that it is unnecessary to treat them 

 in detail. A seventh, being an interloper into the 

 nests of others, by whom its brood is reared, does 

 not fall under the category of artizan, unless we 

 are to regard burglary as a handicraft. 



But the eighth species — the terrifying Hornet 

 {Fespa crabro), is entitled to a few words of separate 

 treatment. In all essentials its nest is internally 

 like that of the smaller wasps, but it is usually 

 built in the hollow of a decayed tree, often in a 

 corner of a disused outhouse, sometimes in a roof 

 beneath the thatch. It is said to use rotten wood 

 as the raw material for its paper-making ; but 



