in a semi-erect posture, like a squirrel, 

 eating a nut, she adjusts the pellet to 

 her jaws, with her fore-legs, and flies 

 away to the site selected for her nest. 

 Her material is not yet ready for use, 

 but must be chewed by her powerful 

 jaws, and mixed with a secretion from 

 her salivary glands, which, correspond- 

 ing with the sizing used by paper manu- 

 facturers, helps to bind the fibrous pulp 

 into a compact mass. When it attains 

 the proper consistency Vespa begins 

 to build her home ; making first a slender 

 stem or support, to the end of which she 

 hangs a little cluster of three, or more, 

 hexagonal cells. They are all mouth 

 down, and she does not finish her first, 

 before starting another. When it is half 

 finished she lays an egg in the first one, 

 and then continues her building. As 

 soon as each cell is large enough it re- 

 ceives a tiny oblong, white egg, covered 

 with a sticky substance, which effectu- 

 ally glues it to the cell wall. Complet- 

 ing her first row, Vespa surrounds it 

 with a second, laying her eggs, as cells 

 are ready to receive them. When per- 

 haps a dozen are thus finished and filled, 

 a protecting wall of the same paper ma- 

 terial, is built about them, enclosing but 

 not attached to them. 



The nest now resembles a pretty little 

 gray ball with a hole in the bottom for 

 entrance and exit, but the labors of the 

 little architect are not yet over. Indeed, 

 fresh duties have devolved upon her, 

 for her first eggs are hatching into small 

 white maggot-like larvae, and the num- 

 ber increases each day. They are very 

 greedy babies, and though they are fixed 

 to the cells by their tails, their mouths 

 are quite free and are always opening 

 for something to eat. Their poor moth- 

 er is kept so busy trying to satisfy their 

 appetites that we may forgive her if her 

 temper seems short, when we interfere 

 with her efforts in that line. Evidently, 

 she cannot afford to be over particular 

 in her marketing. Not only does she 

 collect flies, spiders and other insects, 

 all of which she chews before she feeds 

 them to her children, but also she darts 

 into any convenient dining room or kit- 

 chen, and helps herself to whatever she 

 finds. Fruit she sucks with utter disre- 



gard of property rights. Indeed it would 

 seem that she has a perfect genius for 

 finding the sunniest and ripest side of a 

 pear or an apple. To pick up what ap- 

 pears to be a fine specimen of either fruit 

 and to see a wasp emerge therefrom, 

 tail first, with a sting ready for business, 

 has probably been a common experience 

 with many of us. Often a dozen find 

 lodging in the same apple, and leave it 

 through the same hole, one by one, but 

 never head first. To do otherwise 

 would be, obviously, not good wasp mil- 

 itary tactics. 



Well fed babies grow fat and the wasp 

 larvae are no exception to the rule. 

 Their cells soon become what might be 

 called a tight fit. At the same time, each 

 larva finds the mouth filled with silk, 

 which exhudes through a hole in its lips. 

 It wants no more food now. There is 

 work to be done, and the little worm-like 

 creature knows just how to do it. 

 Touching the side of its cell with its 

 mouth, it draws its head back. This 

 operation it repeats again and again, 

 each time putting out sticky threads, 

 that harden into fine, glistening silk. 

 Thus it lines all but the bottom of the 

 cell, and to accomplish the latter task, 

 it reaches out its head, and weaves back 

 and forth until a cap of a tougher sort 

 of silk covers the opening. 



Thus lying in a silken bag of its own 

 manufacture, the little creature under- 

 goes a marvellous change. The fat lar- 

 val form disappears. There is a clearly 

 defined waist line, with a ringed abdo- 

 men below, and thorax above ; incipient 

 legs and wings, and a waspish looking 

 head. Our little friend is now in the 

 pupa state, and though white as snow at 

 first, she soon grows darker colored, and 

 in time a perfect wasp lies in the silk 

 lined cell. During her larval life, she 

 has shed her skin as she increased in 

 size, and now, a full fledged wasp, she 

 throws off her last delicate covering 

 and is ready to step out into the world, 

 and see what is going on there. With 

 her jaws, she cuts a hole in the cap over 

 her head, moistening the spot with saliva 

 as she works. This hole is soon large 

 enough to let out one of her antennae, 

 and presently her face can be seen fill- 



so 



