136 



SIR JOHN trBBOCK ON BEES AND WASPS. 



away. 



After the above facts we may, I think, well say " How doth the 

 little busy wasp." Even Mr. Ormerod seems hardly to have 

 done justice to his favourites. He is very severe on those 

 wasps which " take up their quarters on the wrong sides of our 

 window." " I have nothing " he continues * " to say on behalf 

 of these wasps ; they are a nuisance and a terror to ail who have 

 little children. They are mere stragglers, who have lost all feel- 

 ing of good fellowship, have deserted their nest, and are leading 

 a freebooter's life." Many of them, on the contrary, I am 'satis- 

 fied, are perfectly respectable wasps which have unfortunately lost 

 their way. 



My experiments, then, in opposition to the statements of Huber 

 and Dujardin, seem to show that wasps and bees do not convey to 

 one another information as to food which they may have discovered. 

 No doubt, when one wasp has discovered and is visiting a supply 

 of syrup, others are apt to come too ; but I believe that they merely 

 follow one another. If they communicated the fact, considerable 

 numbers would at once make their appearance ; but I have never 

 found this to be the case. The frequent and regular visits which 

 my wasps paid to the honey put out for them proves that it was very 

 much to their taste ; yet few others made their appearance. Por 

 instance, on the 19th September, as recorded above, only one wasp 

 came of herself to the honey ; this wasp returned on the 20th, but 

 not one other. The 21st was a hot day, and there were many wasps 

 * Natural History of Wasps, p. 245. 



