WASPS AT HOME. T HERE is probably only one, and that
a very limited class, even among naturalists, who will rejoice in the amazing fertility of the wasp-broods during the present summer. Yet there are persons who by their own confession "have learned to love wasps as some naturalists love bees." To them the opportunity now offered for the observation of their favourite insects will, no doubt, be welcome, and the specimens of highly- finished wasp architecture which decorate the windows of the naturalists' shops near the British Museum or the Brompton Road, will no longer be beyond the purchasing-powers of schoolboy entomologists, Those who prefer to study their wasps at first hand will be glad to learn that "there is no danger in closely observing wasps and their nests, if we only use a little caution and discretion." Such at least was the opinion of Dr. Ormerod, who, however, qualifies his encourage- ment by a caution that it is better not to approach them on a windy day, or in a hot sun, which always quickens their energies, though wasps at work are generally too busy to molest any one who does not molest them." The difficulty is to know exactly what wasps, which have ideas of their own, consider as " molestation," and what is mere harmless curi- osity. No doubt wasps have got a bad name, and provo- cation might often be urged in defence of what at first sight reads like wanton aggression. No one who has read the casual column of country newspapers during the autumn months, can have failed to notice the recurrence of woeful tales of attacks made by wasps on congregations returning from church on Sundays. This at first reads like a peculiarly aggravated form of wasp insolence and outrage. Those who have studied the ways of the village on Sunday mornings know better, and will allow that if left alone, the wasps would behave as well on the first day of the week as on the other six. The cause of the difference lies in this. While the respectable population of the village, adult and adolescent, is at morning service, the bad boys amuse themselves with " molesting " the wasps' nests, either by pelting them with stones, or possibly by lighting a fire over the hole, while some, greatly daring, heap on fuel. This amusement continues till the wasps are in a frenzy of alarm and irritation, and some of the aggressors are stung. Before the close of service, the boys make off; and the wasps, being no respecters of persons, take their revenge on the unoffending crowd who pour out of the church-doors. The writer whose devotion to wasps we mentioned above, suggests several modes of taking wasps'-nests. They are all more or less exciting, dirty, and dangerous, and wholly de- lightful to boys. We are astonished to read that the Cor- poration of Hythe should have to employ a professional gentleman to take wasps'-nests, even though he has destroyed one hundred and forty, when the holidays are not exhausted, and so many willing workers could be bad at the mere cost of tar and gunpowder supplied free. A fire and an explosion are the heroic means of taking wasps' nests. A poor-spirited but effective method in the case of ground-nests, is to spill tar round the entrance. The wasps cannot endure to walk through the sticky morass, and soon desert their colony. Taking the wasps'-nest as a " specimen " is a far more exciting adventure. It is recommended that the beginner should wear leather gloves with sleeves attached, which can be drawn up to the elbows, that the trousers should be tied over the ankles, and that care should be taken :that these "should not have been worn thin in parts." A wide-brimmed hat, a strong veil sewn together down the back, and with the lower edge carefully tucked under the coat-collar, with a handkerchief packed under the chin, are said to make the armour complete.
Sir John Lubbock seems to have developed an almost maternal tenderness for these creatures. He even tried to- wash a wasp. " One of my wasps," be writes, " smeared her wings with syrup, so that she could not fly. When this happened to a bee, it was only necessary to carry her to the alighting-board [a kind of platform or pier erected for the' convenience of his insect visitors], when she was soon cleaned by her comrades. But I did not know where this wasps'-nest. was. At first, then, I was afraid that she was doomed. I thought, however, that I would wash her, fully expecting indeed, to terrify her so much that she would not return again. I therefore caught her, put her in a bottle half-full of water, and shook her up well till the honey was washed off. I then transferred her to another bottle, and put her in the sun to dry. To my surprise, in thirteen minutes she returned as if nothing had happened, and continued her visits to the honey all the afternoon." Sir John Lubbock's surprise is rather amusing, considering the difficulty with which wasps take far less friendly hints not to " call again," even if washed and presentable. This clever observer of wasps and ants used to mark the former, so that they could be identified ; but none seem to have developed the degree of friendship. and familiarity which was shown by the queen-wasp from the Pyrenees, which Sir John took when " as yet alone in the world," guarding her nest of unhatched eggs. "At first," he writes, " she was shy and nervous. She kept her sting in constant readiness ; and once or twice in the train, when the railway officials came for tickets, and I was compelled to hurry her back into her bottle, she stung me slightly—I think, however, entirely from fright." Such a delicate discernment of motive for a wasp-sting deserves the return which Sir John Lubbock subsequently received. The wasp lived for nine months, and became quite used to him, and when he took her on his hand, expected to be fed. She even allowed herself to be stroked without any appearance of fear, and when she died, her owner tells: us that she waved a farewell with her tail,—" a last token, I could almost fancy, of gratitude and affection."
Like many other disagreeable people, the wasp, though intolerable in society, is a paragon of domestic virtue,—of the fussy, hard-working, grate-and-window-cleaning kind, More- over, the wasp invented papier-mache, and the swarm slave at the production of this patent material with all the energy and conscious merit of a South Yorkshire manu- facturing community. The nests, if less beautiful than some enthusiasts assert, are extremely curious and interest- ing, and in the early stages of their construction they gain much in elegance from the nature of the building material need. The first few cells are built by the queen-wasp herself, who, unlike the queen-bee, is the actual founder, builder,. mother, and nurse of the infant colony. The nest, begun early in the spring, is often destroyed, together with the queen- wasp herself, by the rains of April and May ; and the extra- ordinary drought of these months is the key to the wasp- plague of the present summer. Roughly speaking, of the six hardly distinguishable kinds of English social wasps, the three least common make an elegant pendent nest in the- branches of trees, the others preferring either a hole in a bank, or some natural hollow. In the nests of the tree-wasps, the first few cells are hung under an elegant umbrella roof to. shelter them from the rain; this is then surrounded with suc- cessive layers of thin papier-mach& opening at the bottom, so light, flaky, and filmy that the whole resembles the grey and uncrumbled ashes of a rose, supposing that the flower could, when burnt, retain, as paper does, its form, while losing weight and colour. The cells are hexagonal, like those of the hive- bee, but beiug meant as nurseries, and not for honey-stores, are built in single layers, each storey being supported by rows of pillars of cellular papier-mache. The swarm are as busy as ants, each wasp having its own set portion of the walls to complete. But, unlike most ants, though their camp is orga- nised, their commissariat depends on individual exertion, and it is to the independent zeal of the foraging insects that the great wasp nuisance is due. One-third of the colony are busy all day long in bringing food to the rest, each wasp getting what it can where it can, with an aggressive, noisy, headlong industry which will take no denial ; and having just one idea in its head, it usually succeeds in carrying it out. Thirty, or even forty visits, was not an uncommon day's work for one of Sir John Lubbock's wasps, when the honey which he pro- vided had been discovered. Sweet-stuff seems a necessary part of their food, but hardly anything comes amiss to them ; meat from the butcher's, and even garbage of all sorts is carried to the nest. It is perhaps fortunate that wasps do not bite as well as sting, for the blood-poisoning that might follow would probably be serious. It has been urged on behalf of the wasp that it kills flies, and thus plays a useful ,part in nature. The plea can hardly be successful, for the wasp kills spiders as well.
The only members of the tribe for whom we can say a good word are the solitary mason-wasps. There are several kinds of these elegant little insects in England, easily distinguished by their spindle-shaped tails and slender bodies. They are not paper-makers, but build cells of concrete against walls, or in any convenient hole which they can find ; and the little house, compacted of sand and mucus, soon becomes so bard as to turn the edge of a pocket-knife. In this the wasp lays its eggs, and then collects a store of caterpillars, paralysed, but not killed, by its sting, to be ready as food for the young grub. These little wasps have a curious liking for making their .nests in dwelling-rooms, the key-holes of doors, and cabinets striking them as just the kind of place they require to build in. For two years in succession such a nest was made in the /lock of an old bureau in a rectory in Kent, the wasp making amany journeys daily with grubs and caterpillars, and always entering from the interior of the house, by the door, if open, and through the key-hole if shut. Another built in the lock of a kitchen-door, and, in spite of all the traffic, banging. ecooking, and disturbance, brought the requisite stock of food to the cell. The present summer does not seem to have -caused any such increase in the number of these interesting , little wasps, as it has, in the case of the commoner species.
, at the hives of these are hardly more enduring than the material of their nests, and the wasp-plague will cease with , the total destruction of the swarms by the first chills and frosts of the autumn.
Previous page
