26 ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE. 



is a tame hill myna (eulabes intermedia). This species has no 

 tail and inconsequence is a ludicrous object; he is as greedy 

 and impudent a bird as one could wish to meet. His 

 appetite is appalling and he has acquired many bad habits. 

 He does not swear like the sailor's parrot, but he makes up 

 for this deficiency by imitating with unerring exactitude 

 every disgusting noise he hears. Expectoration a la In- 

 dienne is his speciality. My myna is assuredly the most 

 vulgar bird in existence, and that is saying a good deal ! 



There is, or rather was, another nest hanging from the 

 roof of my verandah, for a queen-wasp in a foolish moment 

 selected this unusual site for the foundation of her colony. 

 The queen-wasp is the most industrious of animals. For 

 getting through really hard work the ant to use an 

 Americanism is not in the same street with her. As soon 

 as the warm weather sets in she awakes from her hiber- 

 nating slumber, and having hastily breakfasted, selects 

 a site for her nest. She then flies to the nearest palings 

 or any other structure made of wood, and proceeds to 

 rasp off shavings with her powerful jaws. These she works 

 up in her mouth into a kind of paper. It is a mistake 

 to think that the Chinese first invented paper. Wasps 

 were paper-manufacturers long before the heathen Chinee 

 appeared on the earth. The queen-wasp constructs her 

 nest out of the paper she has made. She fastens it to 

 the roof by a stalk which expands into an umbrella, under 

 which she constructs, with amazing rapidity, a number of 

 hexagonal chambers. These open downwards. In each 

 she lays an egg from which a grub soon emerges. The 

 grubs spend the first days of their existence hanging down- 

 wards, with open mouths, from the roof of their chamber. 

 Her hard worked majesty has then to feed her offspring, in 

 addition to building new chambers. She has further to add 

 to the walls of each cell, so that it may keep pace with the 

 growth of its occupant. 



Yesterday morning as I watched the eager mother 

 fussily attending to her offspring, giving now one, now 



