THE NATURALISI. A WASP'S NEST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1967, 5 November 1891, Page 44

THE NATURALISI. A WASP'S NEST.

It was about the size of a cricket ball, and was made of a somewhat coarse, though- thin, light grey paper. On its upper side it was attached to a branch of gooseberry bush by a mere ribbon of paper, and there was a reddening gooseberry half imbedded in its walls. In the centre of its lower surface it was pierced by a small round hole which evidently served as a door for the inhabitants. _ t '\ It had been built in a gooseberry bush ; and my friend E , who is always on the look-out for " specimens " for me, had gut it out, at the risk of being badly stung' for his pains. By some means he had managed to drive off all the .wasps that were within, but by the time the nest reached my office" several of the pupae in the cells had- conje to maturity, emerged, and dried their wings. During the cutting-out process, the paper walls had got torn on one side, and by carefully turning back the fractured portion I got a capital view of the internal arrangements of the nest. - . "'' :l: l Bight up in the top' of the domed roof was a oluster of three paper cups, of around shape, and inverted. From the centre of this structure there was produced a pillar of grey cardboard spreading out its lower; end, and rooting, so to speak, in an inverted "comb," made up of about 35 six-sided' cells. Half an v inch or thereabouts below; the . second tier of cells there was a third, dependingj'.f rom that next above it by four or five pillars. , All the cells in these combs^ .hung 'mouth downwards, and each wag occupied. In some the tenant was in the" dgg- igtage, and newly deposited ; in others there were larvae of different "sizes — from the tiny maggot recently hatched and dinging to the empty egg-shell, to the burly-looking'giub that completely fills the cell with its fat body. Then there were cells which had the opening closed up by a paper—wasp'papercover, and looked much like little pots of jam with their parchment covers. These last contained wasps in their chrysalis stage 1 , and some were breaking through . the covers as complete wasps, or standing outside drying their newly acquired wings. This was very interesting; but when these recently developed wasps began to leare the 1 nest and fly about the office, it was thought to be the proper time for me to shut the nest up. On arriving home with my paper city and its hundreds of inhabitants my first concern was so to dispose the nest that " business would be carried on as usual" in spite'of the removal of the establishment. In cutting out the nest my friend had been careful not to injure the attachment, to- the "gooseberry bush; and now, by means of a" stout piece of galvanised wire, I fastened thi3 bit of gooseberry branch to & shoot from a wall pear. It seemed an easy matter to accomplish, and yet, try as I would, I could not get it so fixed that the gate of the city-wonld come into its proper position— underneath the nest, 8s formerly. It would persist? in go hanging that the door came half-wiy up one side. This meant that the combs were all edgewise, and consequently the 5 poor grubs had to undergo the misery of lying on their sides instead of comfortably hanging head downwards. This would never do ! Yet I could not alter the position ; ttie law of gravitation was too strong for me. ' Here comes a strange part of my story. I want you to notice this fact, that when the nest came, into my possession there was not a single completely developed wasp] about it, so that the new wasps could not receive

instruction as to their functions and duties' from their elders. In »pite of this, as soon as the new wasps came out they went from cell to cell, lioking the grubs, and evidently giving them food. They flew away from tht nest, and were busy all day, flying in and out, bringing insects they had caught and feeding the grubs with bits? Then some of them set to work to mend the broken walls and build new cells. Was not ' this > wonderful ? They never made paper before, had never seen it made, and had* no one to teach them ; and yet they knew just where to go for the proper material, how to work it up into a pulp, and j how 1 to spread it evenly, and so to repair the ' breakages in a neat and workmanlike manner. But this repair of the wall— however deBirable from a waspish point of view — was a great disappointment for me, because it shut out my view of the inside ; and henceforth I had to content myself with what I could see . through the doorway. This was not much, because these very particular wasps had' cut away the old entrance at the side and' had constructed a new doorway at the bottom of the nest. Looking in at this aperture a few days later, I found that by Borne almost incredible feat of industry the wasps had altered the arrangements of the combs, and now, instead of being perpendicular, they were hung horizontally. 1 believe that in order to effect this they had to build entirely new combs and demolish the 'old ones. By this time the number of winged workers had enormously increased, and some of them were constantly busy laying on fresh strata of paper outside. And so the nest grew in size by this associated labour, until it was 6£in across, and the walls (as I afterwards ascer tamed) were about lin in thickness. The colony had also increased, until now the mature wasps could be numbered by hundreds. I always feel annoyed when I hear some disagreeable short-tempered person dignified by, having the adjective " waspish " applied to him. It is an entire misuse of terms, and a giatituous libel on the insect. In the sense in which that term is understood the wasp is not waspish. Next week I shall give a bit. of my own experience.