FOOD OF THE WASPS. 



139 



is done carefully, there is little damage from the tacks (used to fasten 

 the muslin) to either the paint or wood-work, but care must be taken 

 to allow plenty of muslin, or the lights will necessarily not open as 

 wide as is needed. Also the muslin must be so arranged as not to get 

 in the way of the lights being closed, or to allow apertures which the 

 Wasps will almost certainly discover. 



The food of the Wasps, taken in the straightforward common sense 

 view of what they swallow, or carry off, we all know well. For this, 

 insects in perfect or maggot state, whole or chopped up for convenience 

 of carriage, are a regular article of consumption ; meat also is used, 

 and I have myself watched a Wasp carefully detach a filament of 

 herring, and pack the long piece away into a small parcel beneath 

 what may be called its chin, for transportation. Fruit, sugar, sweets, 

 and other edible materials, and for definite drink, a sip of beer, or beer 

 and sugar, are all notable articles of dietary, and so also, to the sorrow 

 of our bee-keepers, is honey. Also in the case of the large species, 

 known as Hornets, the juice flowing from young bark, which they have 

 gnawed down to the quick, forms an additional article of diet, given by 

 an additional department of mischief. 



But though the distinction is fine between an article of food 

 swallowed for the creature's own use, and an article of food swallowed 

 and wholly or partially restored for use of the young which require 

 victuals ^^and also victuals more or less prepared) to be brought to 

 them, still this point has to be considered in regard to Wasp food. 



Kesearches have shown that in the larva of the Wasp, the food 

 canal, or bowel, has not an external vent, but opens into a blind 

 pouch, and it is stated that when this, with its black contents, are 

 thrown off, as at the second moult of the grub, this mass will be found 

 to be composed of various substances, amongst which scales, hairs, and 

 other fragments of insects, and hairs of vegetables, are recognizable.'''' 



I have not myself seen the operation (said to take place) of the 

 nurse Wasps, or workers, restoring drops of their collected prey from 

 their own insides, and administering the proceeds in small drops to the 

 maggots ; but from my own experience in Wasp larva feeding, they 

 seemed quite ready to swallow anything pleasant and available. 



Those who wish to follow these matters up, will find them, and 

 almost everything that can be thought of in Wasp economy, in the 

 various special papers that have been issued for a great length of time, 

 successively filling in the wanting points of the previous observations. 

 In such of the preceding notes as refer especially to life-history, I wish 

 it to be particularly to be borne in mind by my readers that I have 

 only given a bare outline of the Wasp economy. To enter on details 



* See ' Social Wasps,' by Dr. Ormerod (previoUBly quoted), p. 227. 



