Evening star., 1936-12-26

1t takes all sorts of men to make .
world-and also all sorts Of wasps.
A wasp, it is quite likely. looks upon
all men without distinction as to their
good or bad qualities. They are all
nuisances and q superintendent wasp
might wonder why benevolent Lord
ever invented them. At any event. the
insect stings saint and sinner with utter
impartiality.
Man takes q quite contrary view-that
all wasps are the same. all bad. and all TO
be avoided or killed. There are no nice
wasps which one cares to meet socially.
Both viewpoints are wrong. 1t would
be universally admitted that the wasps
attitude towards man Is sadly warped
because man is looking at man from the
inside out, SO to speak. 1t has remained
for Austin H. Clark, Smithsonian lnstl-
tuition biologist, to discover that mans
attitude towards the wasp also is warped.
There are all sorts of wasps-mean
wasps. suspicious waSps. gentle wasps,
friendly wasps, lazy waSps and ambitious
wasps. Marked personality differences
among these insects can be detected by
close and continuous observation OF
brothers and sisters, Mr.. Clark reports
In paper just issued through the United
States National Museum.
Last Fall q pecuiiarly-shaped mason-
wasp's nest was brought to him from Vlr-
ginia. He kept 1t all Winter, waiting Tor
the insects to emerge In the Spring so
that they could be Identified. They
turned out to be a hitherto unknown SUD
species. But as the little creatures
emerged from their coccoons Mr.. Clark
made minute and continuous observation
of their behavior. 1t often is stressed that
insects are almost entirely creatures OF
instinct and that each individual OF
species Is born with rigid, nearly IN
variable behavior pattern. He found,
quite to the contrary, that they are born
with quite marked individual differences.
The first female to emerge was liter
ally born fighting and looking Tor
trouble. From the time she came out OF
the cocoon. says Mr.. Clark. "she had
very characteristic defense attitude. Sne
was irritable and bad-tempered. II any
OF the others approached her when she
was resting she would make lunEe AZ
them without moving her feet. ana
menace them with her jaws. For resting
she always chose place near the bottom
OF the jar ON the dark side OF one OF the
corks. Her never-failing bad temper,
combined with her small size and other
features, made her always readily identi-
fable. Whenever finger was placed in
her field Of vision, he reports. she inn
mediately struck defensive attitude.
Quite different was her sister. the next
to emerge. She was much bigger and,
says Mr.. Clark, 'of very placid dispo-
sition. At first she was mildly startled at
the appearance Of q finger close to her,
but only to the extent of facing 1t and
watching 1t closely. She never assumed
h defensive attitude and never. except
when resting, drew up her forelegs."
The other females varied between the
susplcio,isness Of the first and the
placidity OF the second, but, Mr.. Clark
reports all were good tempered and
never menaced each other. although they
were not particularly sociable. The one
male Of the family to survive long enough
to be studied appeared to be lazy. life
less fellow. but became quite active when
his sisters began to emerge from their
coccoons.
Mr.. Clark found an almost equally
noticeable difference in the "intelligence"
of the wasps, In so far as this would be
indicated by their ability to solve prob
lens Of their immediate environment