"What is it made of?" asked Jack; "it isn't wax."
"Well, I've heard that the wasp, which has very strong jaws, bites bits of wood off posts and rails, and moistens them by chewing them into a kind of paper, and then makes a comb of it like what you see here."
"I wish I had seen this wasp's nest taken."
"No, Master Jack; why, you'd be in bed at that time: besides, I don't suppose your grandmamma would have let you go, even if you had been here, for you might have been stung. It's rather a touchy job, is taking a wasp's nest,—very different from hiving bees; we give them a home, but we take one from the wasps.
"If the queen bee falls into the new hive, the bees are right enough—they are sure to go where she is; but the wasps are naturally angered and frightened at being suffocated out of their home. So, I say, keep clear of wasps' nests; those jobs are best done on the quiet."
"Was anybody stung when this nest was taken?"
"Yes, your grandma was. She's naturally curious about such things, and came with your grandpa to see the sight. One half-stupified wasp settled on her hair, and she didn't know it; but after she got back to the house it revived a bit and moved, and she, not knowing what it was, touched it, and it stung her badly on the top of her head. I don't think wasps will sting unless they are touched; but they are such creepy things that you don't always know where they are, and you are apt to touch them without meaning to do so."
The next morning at breakfast Jack was talking about the wasp's nest that he had seen on the evening before at the gardener's cottage. Grandma remarked, "There is a kind of wasp called the mason wasp, which bores holes several inches deep in sand-banks. The inside of this long narrow passage is covered with a gummy paste which the wasp makes with her mouth. Here she lays her eggs, and then brings some green caterpillars into the holes, ready for the young wasps to eat when they come out of the egg. Then she closes the holes by a ball of sand, so that nothing can get in to eat the young grub. Sometimes these wasps choose a brick wall instead of a sand-bank for their eggs.
"A friend of mine watched one of these wasps in a wall in her garden. She saw the wasp go into a small round hole in the mortar between the bricks. After a few minutes she walked out of the hole, turned round, and went in again backwards. There she stayed, her little horns and bright eyes being all that could be seen of the wasp. My friend tried to make the wasp come out of the hole, but nothing could move her; so then she had to go away, but not before she had put a mark by the spot.
"The next morning she went back to the wall and found the wasp had gone, and had carefully and cleverly covered up her hole with what looked like mortar.