MONEY IN WASPS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9993, 24 March 1898, Page 6

MONEY IN WASPS.

Along the banks of the Cape Fear river in North Carolina are lowlands behind which liea a higher level or bench. The lowlands are subject to more or loss frequent overflow by freshets, which are destructive to crops planted thereon. A number of years ago a farmer, resident in the vicinity, made a very comfortable sum of money by insuring hj, neighbours' crops against these freshets. His unvarying success as an insurer was for many years a profound mystery to the people of the region. The years when he declined to insure were invariably years of dastmo. tive overflow. The year* when he was will, ing to insure were equally certain to be seasons of exemption from disaster. In the earlier days in England this man's reading of the future would have brought him aomeun. pleasant experience as a dabbler, if not an adept, in the black art. In the Middle Ages of Europe he would probably have been revered as a prophet and saint. Yet his information came from no occult source. Observation had show him that a certain species of wasp, which built its home in the ground, built some years in the lowlands and other years on the higher level. Experience taught him that when the wasp built on the lowlands there were no freshets, and when they built on the higher ground the lower would some time during the season be submerged. The man had simply noted an instance of that little understood prescience manifested by certain insects and animals, a better knowledge of which might even be of service to our national weather bureau. It was only at his death that he revealed his aeoret. — New York Post.