286 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



day, without the use of the plug, the Wasp did not make locality- 

 studies after leaving the nest. A prolonged hovering in front of 

 the plug on arrival was correlated with an elaborate locality- 

 study on departure. 



Lubbock made similar experiments on Wasps. He fed the 

 Wasps in a room, the nest being outside. The room had two 

 windows, one nearer the nest being closed and the other open. 

 A Wasp, probably a worker Vespa germanica, in going home 

 went at first to the closed window. In the first three trials the 

 Wasp had to be " put through the act " by being taken from the 

 closed window and put out by the open window. In the fourth, 

 fifth, and sixth trials it went first to the closed window, then out 

 by the open window. In the seventh to the twenty-second trials 

 the Wasp went directly to the open window. Another Wasp 

 learned the way in a single day and was given fifty trials in five 

 hours. Yet on the next day it went repeatedly to the closed 

 window. Lastly, a worker, probably Vespa vulgaris, learned the 

 correct road in five trials, and was given twenty-five trials 

 altogether. The next day it was not so sure of the way, going to 

 the closed window over and over again.* 



The experiments, apparently the only ones of the kind that 

 have been applied to Wasps, show for the workers used by 

 Lubbock a slower rate of learning than that of the queen Wasp 

 of the experiments described in the present paper, and the results 

 for retention are much inferior. These differences may, in part 

 at least, be accounted for by the necessity in Lubbock's experi- 

 ments of breaking up the strong innate tendency of the Wasp to 

 go towards the light, and by preference the lighted area nearer 

 to its nest when a choice of two lighted areas, one near the nest 

 and the other far from the nest, is exhibited. The difficulty was 

 even more marked in the case of a Bee which w r as admitted by 

 Lubbock to a room through a door at the back of the hive for the 

 purpose of being fed, and which had great difficulty in finding its 

 way back through the postern door of the hive. Here a tendency 

 to go away from the light had to be established, and there was 

 still considerable difficulty at the ninth trial. t The experiments 



- ;: Lubbock, ' Ants, Bees, and Wasps,' p. 415 et seq., 9tli Ed., 1888. Also 

 a resume in Bonianes, 'Animal Intelligence,' p. 145 et seq. 

 t Lubbock, loc. cit. p. 274. Bomanes, loc. cit., p. 181. 



