MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 375 



A ^ Western Cliarpoy. 



B^ = First position of Eastern Charpoy. 



B" = Second position of same. 



S^ = First position of Sun. 



S" = Later position of Sun. 



X = Wasp's Hole. 



C. C = Points about which casts were made by 

 the wasp after the moving of Eastern 

 Charpoy from B^ to B". 



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After a few minutes I noticed a wasp ( or bee ? ) of the kind which looks 

 like a tuft of orange velvet, fly up with a piece of green leaf and enter a 

 hole in the ground about three feet to the east of the middle of the charpoy 

 on which I was sitting. In a moment or two it emerged without the leaf 

 and flew away. For the next hour or so I watched several similar visits 

 of the insect. Btit, as the sun moved across the sky, my charpoy was 

 thrown out of the shade and I had to move it following the shadow of the 

 tree eastwards. In the new position the charpoy was about three feet to 

 the east of the wasp's hole. 



When the wasp in a few minutes time returned, instead of going to the 

 hole, it flew to a point about three feet east of my charpoy in its new posi- 

 tion ( that is, to a point having the same bearing on the new position of the 

 charpoy that the hole had on the first position of the charpoy) and proceed- 

 ed to make a number of close casts, evidently searching for its hole. After 

 about a minute of this the wasp rose into the air, flew over my charpoy and, 

 passing very nearly above its hole, went on to the western charpoy, which 

 had not been moved, and made one or two rather wild casts to the east of 

 this charpoy also. It soon gave this up and returning by much the same 

 line, began once more to make casts to the east of the charpoy on which I 

 was sitting. It did not however persevere long but flew oft', still carrying 

 its piece of leaf and though I stayed on for the best part of another hour, 1 

 did not see the wasp again. 



The wasp's behaviour seemed to me to show that it was not guided hy 

 some mysteriovis homing instinct, but took its bearings from some convenient 

 object much as we do ourselves. When this object was moved without its 

 knowledge, it was as completely thrown out as we should be, if a hill, on 

 which we relied for direction, were moved, unknown to us, from the west to 

 the east side of our objective. 



It would have been interesting to know whether the wasp began work on 

 the hole before or after the charpoys were put out on the grove. The for- 

 mer supposition seems the more probable ; in that case the impression of the 

 first set of bearings, taken on more distant objects such as the tree, must 

 have been completely effaced by the stronger impression afterwards produced 

 by the charpoy, looming large in the immediate vicinity of the hole. 



With regard to the casts made by the wasp to the east of the western 

 charpoy, I cannot definitely state that these were evidence of an attempt 

 to apply to the western charpoy bearings which had given no result when 

 applied to the eastern charpoy. The casts were too few, too hasty, too high 

 to justify the definite adoption of this conclusion. Nevertheless the impres- 

 sion conveyed to me at the time was that the wasp was actuated by the 



