NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 375 



my own series. This year, however, it was found in sufficient numbers to 

 enable me to fill up my own set and distribute a few pairs among my 

 friends. The South Downs of England are, I believe, the extreme 

 northern limit of its occurrence, and it is doubtless owing to the excep- 

 tionally fine and hot spring favouring the growth of the larvae, that it 

 occurred this year so much more freely than usual. I obtained a large 

 batch of eggs from one of the females, but as I started for a botanical tour 

 in North Italy the very day on which they hatched, the bulk of my larvae 

 died or ate one another, and I have now but four left. — Fbederick 

 J. Hanbuby; 37, Lombard Street, E.G., August 23, 1893. 



The Plague of Wasps. — This morning's ' Standard ' (August 23rd, 

 1893) contains an account of the very destructive damage inflicted on the 

 fruit crops in Essex by vpasps, and the consequent destruction by gardeners 

 in one neighbourhood alone of 300 nests during the last few days. Mention 

 is also made of an island in the same county swarming with wasps, which 

 instantaneously attack all the food brought by tourists bent on enjoying a 

 picnic there. Not long since, at an open-air tea given by the Salvation 

 Army in the South of England, the wasps covered all the jam, sugar, &c., 

 and stung several of the children ; a scene of confusion ensued, and the 

 teachers and conductors of the party were at their wits' end what to do, 

 until they bethought themselves of the expedient of daubing the branches 

 of neighbouring trees all over with the jam, and thus occasioned a diversion 

 thither of the winged pests. Only a few days since, a French gentleman, 

 resident at Chalons-sur-Marne, was engaged in taking a nest in his garden 

 one morning, when he was attacked by a strong swarm, and severely stung 

 all over the head and face. The unfortunate man rushed into his house in 

 a pitiable state and immediately sent for a doctor, but was dead before 

 medical aid, though summoned with all haste, arrived. The unusual 

 number of wasps this year is no doubt attributable to the extreme dryness 

 of the spring, and also to the almost unprecedented length and heat of the 

 present summer. In reference to the 300 nests above mentioned, these 

 probably averaged, on the most moderate computation, 9000 wasps per nest 

 (and a strong nest will frequently reach 4000). But to take the lowest 

 figure, 300 nests containing 2000 each make a total of 600,000 wasps. 

 Now in spite of great care, cost and labour, expended in searching out and 

 destroying, when summer is well advanced, the nests that send forth their 

 hordes to our orchards and wall-fruit, several nests are nearly sure to escape 

 observation, and it is equally certain that there will be numerous absentees 

 when any particular nest is taken. The easiest and most efficacious 

 method is, if possible, to catch the mothers of the very numerous progeny, 

 the queens, as they flit about a sunny bank in April, before they are 

 permanently located inside their self-chosen domicile. I adopted this plan 

 in 1888, capturing 25 queens, chiefly in the direction of Dudden Hill, 22 

 of Vespa germanica and 3 of F. vulgaris ; and a marked diminution of 

 wasps was observable in Kilburn last summer. If my memory serves me 

 right, 1852, 1853, 1854, and 1856 were all seasons remarkable for the 

 abundance of wasps. Gas tar, parafiin, lighted straw, and boiling water, 

 may be quoted among the various methods resorted to for destroying the 

 nests, the two last named being probably the least efficacious. Personally, 

 1 believe there is no plan better than the old-fashioned one of a coarse 

 rag folded many times, with a layer of sulphur between each fold, stuck 

 deep into the hole at dusk, and then to ignite the end, and to blow long, 



