ells are broken away and a stem is made to start the
next floor, and so on, until there are four or five combs in the house.
They are always building the house over, tearing down the walls to make
room for new floors; but this does not make the house unsafe in the mean
time, as the walls are not connected with the floors, but form a loose
envelope about them.

"Later in the season, after the family has become very large, some of
the upper cells are torn out, making a nice, warm attic, where the
family may go to keep out of the wind and rain. They dislike the cold
and wet very much.

"I carried this big house to my cabin with me, so that I might look it
over and see just how it was arranged. Very carefully I cut away a
little of the outer wall until I had a place large enough to look
through. Guess what I saw lying cuddled down in many of these rooms?
Little, soft, white baby wasps. When the Vespa family are grown up they
are called hornets, and Peter and Tom know how hornets sting! I was not
afraid of the babies, but was not sure that all the old wasps were out.
It was a cold day, and wasps get stiff very quickly, so I watched
carefully to see whether the warm air of the room would not limber up
some stiff joints which were perhaps in hiding up-stairs in the house.
Sure enough, in a few moments out crawled a worker, looking quite dazed
and sheepish at the change in temperature. I did not wait for it to
become thoroughly awake, but picked it up with the forceps and put it
out of the window. I was kept busy, for twenty-five old fellows walked
out, thinking, no doubt, that they had made a mistake in the season, and
that it was not time, after all, for them to die. All the wasp family,
except the queens, expect to die, and do die in the autumn.

"I could not find either flies or spiders for the babies, and even if
there had been a few about I could not have used them, as there was no
worker wasp to chew them soft and fine for them. So I made a nice,
appetizing syrup of sugar and water, and found that young wasps were as
eager for sweets as little children are. They worked their baby mouths
busily as long as I had the patience to feed them. When the Vespa family
are grown up they eat honey dew from the little aphids, fruit juice, and
the nectar from flowers, or, if fortune favors them, they may gain
entrance to Mrs. Honey-Bee's home, and feast from her well-filled
honeycombs. But the babies all eat insects which their moth