150 CURIOtJS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



Among insects that appear to show great ingenuity 

 in building their nests are the social wasps. In com- 

 paring their colonies and their habitations with those 

 of the ants and the honey-making bees, it must not be 

 forgotten that, unlike the commonwealths and struc- 

 tures of the latter, they have only a temporary exist- 

 ence. On the approach of winter the males and 

 workers perish, and of aU the busy society, numbering 

 in the height of the season thousands of indi\iduals, 

 only a few females survive that, seeking such shelter 

 as they can find in crevices in rocks or walls or the 

 bark of trees, pass the winter in a doniiant state. 



Awakened from her deathlike sleep by the warm 

 winds of spring, each of these insects forms a new 

 colony. At first she does double duty — she is Ijoth 

 queen and worker. A small nest is begun, eggs are 

 laid in it, and when the baby wasps — the larvix^ as the 

 young of insects are called — are hatched she feeds 

 and cares for them until they outgrow their larval 

 condition as grubs and become perfect insects like 

 herself. The first brood consists of workers only. 

 They immediately begin to help their mother in her 

 household affairs, and soon leave her nothing to do 

 but lay eggs and assist in the care of the young. 



The paper of which the nests of the social was]is 

 consist, as is elsewhere stated, is made of wood. The 

 wasps bite off particles of it from weather-beaten 

 clapboards of houses and partly decayed planks and 

 rails in fences, and by chewing it make it into pulji, 

 which can be easily shaped and molded, and readily 

 dries on exj)osure to the air. Like thcjse of the honey- 



