The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1891-12-31
NATURES PAPER MAKERS
A Short Story of tho Wasp and
It's Habits.
An fndrs.-ious Insect That Builds with
Infintc skill and Docs Not Live
to Enjoy the Fruits of
Its Labors.

"Wasps were the first paper-makers,"
said an entomo!oGist to writer for the
Washington Star. at is very interest
ing to study the ways of these fierce lit
tie insects For the sake of a grab at
the honey store a single individual will
sometimes face a whole hive of bees,
being in fair combat Il match for any
three inhabitants of the apary. Most
OF us have had experience of the fear
lessness with which they will attack
human beings.
The wasp spends the winter in a
torpid condition. and when spring ar
rives she hunts up some sort of shell
tered spot appropriate for Il nest. A
mouse hole serves her purpose excel
lently. Having selected the retreat,
she proceeds to lay within it the foun-
dation of n home that is destined be-
fore long to afford quarters for a large
and busy family. For this object earth
will not serve her turn. The substance
of which the walls and chambers of the
house are to be composed must be none
other than the finest paper, made of
wood pulp. mixed with n sort of sizing,
worked to paste and finally spread in
to sheets.
"On any fine day in springtime you
may catch sight of wasp earnestly at
work with it's jaws upon an old fence
paling or window frame. In this man.
ner she gets together a bundle of wood
raspings, which she carries into the
hole she has selected, thcreupon knead-
ing it into paste and preparing it prop
hnr Al.
rial she builds sort of terrace, which
she suspends horizontally, and not, like
the combs of n beehive, in vertical
position. The terrace is sort of hang
ing Hoor, secured to the roof by strong
paper rods. 1t is circular, and is com
posed OF an immense number of cells
made of paper and almost of the same
size and form as those of a honey-comb,
each being perfect heXagon. These
cells, however, are never used as hon
ey pots by wasps, as they are by bees,
for wasps make no honey, and the cells
are only utilized for nursery PURPOSES
in other words, as rooms in which the
young are reared.
when the old lady wasp has COM
pleted certain number of cells and de-
posted eggs in them she stops building
In order to procure honey from the
flowers wherewith to feed the young
wornlike larvae which have been hatched
from the eggs. In few weeks these
little grubs become perfect wasps and
lend their assistance in the extension of
the ediiice, forming another platform of
cells suspended from the first by col
umns. So it continues, and by the end
OF summer the perhaps it might
be better called a town-of hanging ter
races is completed, and the descendants
OF the original foundress may number
as many as thirty thousand.
Scarcely has the nest arrived at COM
pletion through the labors of the young
est generation of it's inhabitants, when
the early frosts of autumn begin to thin
their numbers. When November comes
the wasp population is cut off by a
pestilence. Of those abroad some fall |
far from their habitation; others crawl |
back to die, while those at home, lately |
SO busy in the work of building, repair
ing, or keeping in order are now slug
gish and inactive. In little while the
city of terraces becomes city of the
dead Its sole surviving dwellers are
two or three females on whom depends
the perpetuation of the race. They pass
the winter in torpid state, and when
the early warmth of spring awakens
them they wander off, each on her own
way, to found another colony"