’ 
PA a 
OcTOBER 26, 1916] 
spring and of nests and workers in summer is so 
common that I am tempted to think that the more 
conspicuous, and therefore more often caught, queens 
are infertile, and the rewards for their destruction 
wasted. Perhaps some member of the Association of 
Economic Biologists will take the matter up? 
ALFRED O. WALKER. 
Ulcombe, Kent. 
In reference to the letter of Mr. H. V. Davis 
(Nature, October 12, p. 109), 1 may. say that in this 
district ordinary wasps have been decidedly scarce this 
year. Reports from several other localities are of the 
same character. Queens, however, were abudant in 
the spring (May and June), but I think that only a 
few survived the wet and cloudy weather. 
I make a point of cultivating these insects, as they 
are extremely interesting to watch, and destroy myriads 
of flies every summer. There were six embryo nests 
in my garden in May last, but only one (Vespa vul- 
garis) managed to withstand the vicissitudes of the 
inclement weather. This nest was a weak one, for 
when I dug it out on September 20 it consisted of 
four layers of cells, the top one alone being for small 
working wasps (1000 cells), while the others were 
exclusively for queens and drones (1450 cells). This 
proportion is quite exceptional according to my own 
observation, for I have commonly found the smaller 
cells greatly in excess of the others. In a much 
stronger nest (Vespa germanica) which I took here on 
October 6, 1915, there were 12,900 cells, forming ten 
tiers, and less than a quarter of the former had been 
devoted to the rearing of queens and drones. 
Very few persons will be inclined to attract wasps to 
reside in their own immediate neighbourhood, but 
anyone caring to study these insects should make a 
few little cavities in dry situations early in April. The 
eens begin selecting eligible positions in that month 
iene date, April 17). It is certain that wasps are 
not so aggressive and violent as commonly supposed. 
They display remarkable industry and activity, for at 
midsummer they may be observed streaming to and 
from their homes during a long working day of 
eighteen hours! In view of the justified agitation 
against the house-fly in recent years, it is questionable 
whether the usual spring campaigns against queen 
wasps should be encouraged. On a bright summer 
day in 1913 I carefully watched the entrance of a 
wasps’ nest in my garden, and concluded that the 
insects brought home at least 2000 flies. 
W. F. DeEnninc. 
44 Egerton Road, Bristol, October 14. 
REFERRING to Mr. H. V. Davis’s letter in Nature 
of October 12 on the scarcity of wasps, I have taken 
nests for some years over an area a little less than 
tooo acres as follows :—1906, 95 nests; 1907, 61; 
1908, 31; 1909, 113; I910, one (Vespa rufa, Linn.); 
I9II, 85; 1912, 56; 1913, 189; 1914, 21; 1915, 56. 
1916: I knew of three Vespa vulgaris, Linn., nests, 
and took one as it hindered ploughing, and in the early 
part of the season I hived three Vespa sylvestris, Scop., 
. nests as there were a very large number of V. sylvestris 
queens about. My hived ones died out before hatch- 
ing queens (this wasp is always earlier here, and 
gone before the fruit, and I have never caught it in 
my house), as did some unhandled nest I heard of.* 
In 1910 the V. rufa nest had been scratched up before I 
ot it, and I saw a few V. vulgaris workers about the 
ern, indicating at least one nest, but actually saw 
no other nests that year. Ricuarp F. Burton. 
- Longner Hall, Salop, October 17. 
NO. 2452, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
149 
Tue Dartford Naturalists’ Field Club this season 
also experienced a scarcity of wasps; local papers 
reported the same about Gravesend on the east, and 
Bexley on the west. 
Their nests were very plentiful last year, and so 
queens were exceedingly plentiful in spring—abnorm- 
ally so. But later a cold spell nipped those about at 
the time. 
Observers here speak confidently of the persistent 
hunting of flies by these early queen wasps, out too 
soon for nectar from flowers, and say the early wasps 
put down the flies for this summer. Flies were far 
more numerous last year, and, other things being 
equal, a beekeeper predicts. many flies next summer, 
because of this season’s scarcity of wasps. He re- 
members such an experience at Green St. Green 
(Dartford). 
On May 27 I saw a note about more wasps than 
usual at Dudley, a district fairly free compared with 
the south and west. It was during May when so 
many early queens were observed here. 
S. Priest 
(Hon. sec., Dartford Naturalists’ Field Club). 
REFERRING to Mr. Davis’s letter, it would be interest- 
ing to know if the same dearth of wasps has been 
noted in the cider counties. 
I have caught only two here this season (in jars of 
beer and sugar placed ‘outside), while last year I 
trapped hundreds. 
C, Carus-WIzson, 
Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, October 13. 
Glacial Nomenclature and Scott’s Antarctic 
Expedition. 
In the review of my book, “‘ With Scott—The Silver 
Lining,”’ in Nature of June 1, the reviewer, among 
many kindly remarks, takes exception to my use of 
the word ‘‘riegel.” He prefers the English word 
“bar.’’ I have briefly explained my point of view in 
the Geographical Journal (p. 571, December, 1914), but 
may be allowed to elaborate it a little. 
Webster gives fourteen paragraphs dealing with 
different meanings of the word “bar.’’ One at least 
of these—the bar of a river—is a geographic term. 
Why should the reviewer use the Scotch word “ corrie”’ 
or the French “cirque” (as I use the Welsh ‘‘cwm”) 
if not because—as in my case—there is no English 
word which is not ambiguous? I believe that there wasa 
movement in Oxford to standardise geographic nomen- 
clature. I sent in a memorandum in 1913, but have 
heard nothing of it lately. 
May I refer briefly to further Antarctic questions 
raised in the review? The “catenary curves" illus- 
trated in my book are not “ordinary denudation 
curves’? in my opinion. They are common in the 
Alps (e.g. above Hospenthal, on the St. Gothard Road), 
but not in regions of normal erosion. An ordinary 
water-cut valley only a few hundred yards across 
would certainly not exhibit the smooth catenary curve 
of the small empty Antarctic valleys. 
The small scale of the photograph of the Discovery 
Hut (p. 189) has, I feel sure, led the reviewer into a’ 
natural error. My colleague, Debenham, is emerging 
vid the window, since the door alongside was then 
blocked by ice. J am certain that Prof. J W. 
Gregory’s hut could not have been satisfactorily erected 
so that the “ support” shown in the figure could have 
been sunk in the ice. Under the latter condition the 
door sill would have been 3 ft. below ground-level. 
The problem of the ‘‘origin of the glacier valleys” 
