THE ART OF THE WASP.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4758, 1 October 1924, Page 1

THE ART OF THE WASP.

A CLOSE STUDY OF THEIR WAYS. REASON OR INSTINCT ? How very much less ungracious is the wasp than the hive bee, perhaps because she is less highly strung! The reflection follows a week of close contact, in the proper sense of the word, with a wasp community. I have watched them from a few inches’ distance day after day, put my hand into the nest, cleared away the ground, pulled grasses out of the paper combs, and never suffered so much as a threat from the inhabitants. And how closely you can observe their ways and processes I

The particular nest was set in a crevice formed by the partial subsidence of a steep bank. By cutting away a very small amount of earth a third at least of the circle of the paper nursery was exposed, It protruded like a bay window. It is always amusing to tiust the zeal and intelligence of the wajsp by setting obstructions across his doorway or littering the entrance. This is paved with a thin veneer of polish laid on by the mouth of the wasp, and is kfept very tidy. The house maids carry away obstacles or cut them off- very much as a beaver will, and with infinite patience continue to carry away the rubbish, however many times it is replaced.

Using the opportunity of a singularly well-placed observation nest, I tried a much more drastic interference. On one occasion with a pair of scissors, on another with-fingfer and thumb, I removed a considerable section of the paper, making a sort of window into the interior of the nest. The rent and damage were at once recognised as serious. Wasps crawled out) ip numbers from the unseen entrance, deep in the crevice, and an air of agitation prevailed. But it lasted a very short time. The engineers at once held a consultation, and came Quickly to a definite decision. How this was done or by what means communicated to the builders remains to me fi mystery, What is certahi is that within a few minutqg • the workers—plasterers is pernaps a Better word than bricklayers —had undertaken the repairs. They all proceeded on much the same system? Each would select' somlq flap of the existing paper, - grip it very firmly with the front pair of legs, and insert the edge between the very tips of the mouth. She would then move backwards, working the while very hard with the jaws, from which a lialf-liquid plaster was continuously squeezed out, as it might be, from a tube of liquid cement, and .simultan? eously shaped. The usual length of paper-edge taken at a bout was rath-T more than a quarter of an inch ; and each plasterer went over- its piece either three or four .timeis before re-? tiring to manufacture another holeful of mortar.

The work was done .with altogether amazing speed. Each; of these separate jobs of work occupied rather less than four minutes. When it was over you could see very distinctly just how much had been accomplished. The pale grey paper of the older work was now rimmed with a dark grey line of the new damp plaster, .which retained its colour for some half an hour. These workers united to restore the general circular symmetry of the nest, but there was nothing formal or symmetrical ip any particular detai’. Thin lines of, plaster at any convenient angle were drawn out to .‘lx this fold and that firmly in position. The wasp worked always in a manner to suit the exact problem before it. The energy and celerity of the repairing , were' more astonishing than the adaptability. An excision not less than , a half-inch cubed had entirely vanished between 6.30 p.m. and noon the next day; and the workers, so long as my observations < lasted, were few,, seldom more than three or four. At the end of five days the visible bulge of the. nest was entirely perfect, the ugh at various intervals much paper had come away with the clods of earth. Bents and sticks, which went deep into the nest, had been pulled out, and chunks of paper had been intentionally torn out on three occasions. The workers were so absorbed in their tasks that you could have used a magnifying glass to watch them, but th z ey allowed you to peer so close that this was unnecessary.

Tt is tempting to moralise —may one say socialise ’ But the temptation, is best avoided, and no subject is more interminable than the comparison ot reason with instinct, or, indeed, of individualism with socialiism. Let it suffice that the wasps worked hard and well. They did their job soundly and sensibly. Doubtless, too, they do their job in what we call the /economy of nature, whatever that may mean ; and-that is why the zeal a£ the gardener to “take" the nest may be judged to be unreasonable. From time to time,- at wide intervals, wasps so flourish as to be a plague. Odd fields cannot be ploughed. Yachts cannot moor on certain reaches of the rivers. Meals,-if they includterjam, become a burden. But what is to be said of the reason of gardeners who leave heaps of cut grass where house-flies brfeed in thousands and lay in stores of poison or sulphur and gunpowder to destroy the nests of one of the most interesting of all the nisects, and not the least useful ? Watch these wasps a little later, wheji they begin to attack the blight and the flies. To destroy wasps is often as bad natural history as to destroy, weasels.