46 
THE WASP. 
wood that have been in the rain and sun till they 
are soft : a very old post, or gate, or part of an old 
tree, will any of them do very well. The Wasp 
will bite off bits of the old wood to make the nest 
of, and it has a kind of glue in its body, so that it 
can make the bits of wood firm on the rose bush ; 
and the nest is so made that no rain or wet can get 
into it, but runs off as it does from a roof. One 
kind of Wasp does not make its nest in a tree, but 
in some bank. The Wasp, like the bee, puts its 
egg into a cell ; but the cell is, for the most part, 
made of old wood, like the nest, and not of wax, 
like the cell of a bee. One kind will make a sort 
of door to shut up the hole of its nest when it is 
wet, and this nest has a good deal the look of a cup 
with a lid to it. The grub of this kind is fed on a 
fly, and the old Wasp will put a dead fly into the 
nest for the grub to feed on, and shut the door 
down to keep it safe. In time, the grub will eat 
the fly, and then gnaw its way out : it will then be 
a Wasp. 
