A Dutiful Queen
On the second of the days of thaw, as I was cutting wood, a queen wasp appeared to take advantage of the material. Presumably she had only just come out of hibernation, but had set out straight away after her six months of sleep and starvation to begin the nest for the new generation. The floods will have killed a good many winterers, perhaps chiefly bumble bees, which like a deep hole, as well as millions of worms, which lie thick in some clayey hollows that have begun to drain away. Among birds the worst sufferers were the thrushes ; but the few that remain began singing briskly on the first warm morning while the blackbirds, which showed no signs of suffering, remained silent. Little migrants have been punctual in spite of the weather. I heard of chiff- chaffs on March 11th and wheatcars a day or two later.
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