Wasps and Winter.
Wasps are seeking shelter and warmth everywhere. Like flies that take to the sunny side of a tree-trunk and bask on the bark, they are to be seen on a wall that throws back whatever heat the sun has to give. They seem to be fond of a hedge of ivy that grows along the cemetery wall. Death will come to thousands upon thousands in a matter of days. The warmth they find beneath the ivy is gone by dusk. In the morning they are round the kitchen-windows, discovering a way in and making a nuisance of themselves. There is still enough food to be had in the windfall apples and the over-ripe black behles which they share with the maggot; but a wasp is an insect that thrives best in the heat of July. When summer is gone, the brood leaves the bank as soon as frost and damp threaten. For a day or No they manage to survive, but when the cold nip is in the air their days are limited. Even the queens, crawling in at the eaves, hiding in the curtain-folds, face long dreary months, when their chances of living to produce a fresh brood are often' slight. Only the fact that reproduction, when it starts, can go on at such a fantastic rate keeps the wasp kind in existence.
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