OBSERVATIONS IN ENGLAND. 125 



material is chiefly of rotten wood, they will gnaw down to the sap wood 

 of young branches or stems for the purpose, apparently, not only of 

 using the torn off pieces of the bark for building purposes, but that 

 they may suck the sap that flows from the wound. Ash is mentioned 

 as preferred; after this Willow, Alder, Birch, Beech, Lime, and Elder. 

 (In an instance where I had myself, together with my sister, the 

 opportunity of watching Hornets at their operations in removing 

 patches of bark from some Ash saplings by a pool in Gloucestershire, 

 we were able to see them definitely sucking in the sap from the torn 

 edge of the bark. — Ed.) Necessarily, where much bark is taken, or 

 the young bough, or sapling, completely ringed, much damage is 

 done. 



Mr. J. Masters, Hon. Sec. of the Evesham Fruit-growers Experi- 

 mental Committee, writing to me from Evesham on the 11th of Sept., 

 in reply to my enquiries, observed : — " It is singular, but here in our 

 immediate locality we have had no more Wasps than in ordinary years. 

 This, my opinion, is confirmed by that of others. 



" The men have taken the Hornets' nests this year in my orchard. 

 The nests were built in the cavities of two old trees. The powder-ball, 

 that is, the paste made of wetted gunpowder, was applied to the hole ; 

 this ignited the filth or decayed wood, which gradually burned the 

 interior of the tree, and destroyed the nests. Of course it killed the 

 tree. The usual method employed here in taking Wasps' nests, is by 

 the fizzy, or powder-ball." 



GLoucESTERsmRE. — The following note refers chiefly to removal of 

 already disturbed Chafer grubs by Wasps. During the latter part of 

 the summer, I received a good deal of communication from Miss 

 Dobell, of Detmore, near Cheltenham, regarding Chafer grubs (see 

 ante, pp. 26, 27), which were injuring the grass roots on her land to 

 such an extent that she was employing some men and boys to collect 

 the grubs, which they were doing in great numbers ; and about the 

 10th of September, Miss Dobell wrote me as follows regarding the 

 attacks of Wasps on the Chafer grubs when collected from under the 

 grass : — '* I have been much interested to see that Wasps are wild for 

 the grubs, and seem to bite them in half just below the head, and carry 

 off something out of them to their nests. The men said they killed 

 lots in the tins in this way. 



" Last night, at seven o'clock, I went into the field to see if there 

 were more places to do, and pulled out three or four grubs, and put 

 them on the open space ; a Wasp came at once and killed the grub in 

 the way I mention, flew away, and came back for more." 



With regard to Wasps' nests. Miss Dobell mentioned that up to the 

 date of writing (10th September) none but ground nests had been 

 noticed this year ; but of the ground nests numbers had been taken, 



