138 
Psyche 
[December 
ginosis bring in large globules that glisten in their jaws as 
they fly. Sometimes if disturbed they lose their drops in 
flight or as they alight on the nest; by placing my note- 
book under the nest I have collected many such drops. At 
first I thought that the liquid might be a thin nectar, but 
when I substituted my tongue for my notebook, my taste 
told me it was clear water. 
It is strange that so many of the wasps remained on 
the nest most of the time. In this colony of thirteen queens, 
from nine to thirteen were on the nest at all times; this 
means that sometimes none were out, and never more 
than four were out at one time. I could not understand 
why, with June still young, this group did not hustle to 
bring in pulp and increase the size of the nest. It appeared 
that they were merely waiting for the workers to emerge; 
with the first of their queenly instincts satisfied, they were 
remembering that they were queens, and now had only to 
await the vassals. Many of the larvae were full-grown and 
ready to spin, and the younger larvae could be sustained 
with only a few of the queens at work occasionally. While 
nine days ago only eight cells had been capped, today 
twenty-eight were capped. All this prospect of help from 
twenty-eight workers in the near future may account for 
the aristocratic languor of these queens. 
With so many adults on the nest, it was hard to follow 
the activities of each, even though all bore distinguishing 
marks, but a few notes were so made. For instance, three 
certain wasps were seen more frequently than the others 
at the ventilating hole, vibrating their wings. “Red- 
thorax” gave special attention to inspecting the cells with 
larvae; “Blue-thorax” often left her ventilating post and 
flew afield, and when she returned to the nest the others 
would sip nectar or what not from her mouth. No paper 
pulp was being brought in now, and only a few shallow 
cells contained eggs. In one place instinct had miscarried; 
a cell with one-fourth grown larva contained also an egg, 
deposited a little below it. Since no cell is capable of bring- 
ing to maturity two larvae, one must eventually perish. 
The nest did not adhere well to the smooth iron ceiling, 
so when I attempted to pull off with the forceps a tightly 
