294 THE WASPS. 



we have seen with the bees, rest and plentiful food bring 

 about their development. The second and more difficult 

 problem, or the later appearance of males and fertile females, 

 was solved when the discovery was made among bees that 

 the queen was able to control the laying of male and female 

 eggs, and how this was done. The fertile females of the 

 wasps, therefore, lay female and fertilised eggs only so long 

 as the stock of semen in the spermatophore lasts. When 

 this store is exhausted in late summer or autumn, male 

 insects must necessarily be formed. But of the female or 

 fertilised eggs only the last laid will result in sexually- 

 mature females, because the nest building is only then 

 finished, and food enough can then be supplied to the 

 workers to enable the sexual organs of the larvae to attain 

 full development. " That which at first appeared as a 

 designed plan," says W. Dundt (" Lectures on Mind in Men 

 and.Animals," ii., p. 196), " which mysteriously found its 

 fulfilment by the instinct of animals, has been shown to be 

 so completely the result of necessity in these mpst simple 

 insect societies, that after the physical organisation of the 

 animal has once been established in this distinct fashion no 

 other explanation will be longer thought of." 



The wasps proper, like the bees, live socially and in 

 regular communities, in which labor is divided among the 

 males, females, and workers or neuters, although not as com- 

 pletely as among bees. They would fill us with wonder and 

 astonishment as to the reasoned and artistic building of their 

 dwellings, the care of their young, the order prevailing in 

 their societies, if we only had them, and not their yet more 

 intellectual relations the bees, before our eyes. They are 

 brave, patient, versatile and crafty, and as they are subject 

 to common and daily observation as they fly about cease- 

 lessly in autumn, a number of anecdotes are related about 

 them which illustrate their sense and their cunning. As the 

 wasps have not like the bees comfortable homes, or tolerably 

 suitable holes in trees, sheds, etc., they usually build their 

 nests and cells hanging, fastening them to the branch of a 

 tree, eaves of a roof, etc., by one or more threads of twisted 

 wood-fibres, and covering all with a hanging roof made of 

 paper-like material. All the individual cells have their 

 openings downwards, so that the larva must hang head 

 downwards and must hold on to the cell-walls with their 



