The Way of the Wild

by F. St. Mars

Presumably some unlucky visitor had called in her absence. More sounds of concentrated argument followed, and finally there fell out, rather than rushed out, a small and amazingly slender black wasp, one of those hermits who seem to consecrate their lives to lonely working for a family they never see. This unhappy one slid down the bank, curled up at the bottom, uncurled, curled up again, and—remained curled. Apparently her day's work was done, which comes of falling foul of the yellow flag.

Arrived inside, at her hallowed chamber, our queen carefully selected a rootlet in the roof—not just any old rootlet, mark you; never any "old" anything, you will notice, but a good, sound, well-found rootlet that you could hang five or six pounds' weight to; indeed, three rootlets before she had finished. To these rootlets she fastened—gummed would be a more correct word—her pellet of wasp-paper, in the form of a thin layer, and hurried away, singing, for more. This was, so to speak, the foundation-stone of the city, laid, be it noticed, not haphazard—our queen never did any business that way—but with mathematical regard as to what was to follow. In very fact, too, it was the foundation-stone of her city, only upside-down, though that is nothing. Wasps always do things that way, which is unlike ants, those other and greater city builders.

Back came the queen very soon with another load, and pasted that—thin—to the first layer, hurrying, bustling, humming a happy song continuously to herself. Then away again for more, and in the process to a lively battle with a robber-fly, who appeared set upon robbing her of her blood. It tried, like the beetle, to stalk her and pounce upon her back, what time she was planing out wood for paper-pulp; but her back wasn't there when it pounced, and her jaws were. It "waited on," hovering like a falcon, and twice as keen, and when she got to work again, dropped like a hurled lance-head, only to be met with jaws, wide and ready, as before.

It went away, watching from afar—far for an insect—from "the little speedwell's darling blue" upon the hedge-bank, and just as she was moistening the load, gathered ready to fly off, delivered its final ultimatum—a marvelously persistent murderer. This time it, or, rather, she, was received with the point—the poisoned point—and, turning like a spent lightning-flash to avoid it, found the queen hard on her heels, following all down the gay hedge-ditch, humming high, in nearly a shriek of rage. Finally, she turned, to do battle for her life, and the two, grappling, fell as shooting-stars fall, gleaming, athwart the sun, with a brrr-r like a fused wire, and finished the job, rolling over and over on the ground—rolling over and over among the stalks of bluebells, like the heavens "upraising from the earth."

It is written, however, that few in the insect world can withstand a queen of the yellow devils, and in a few seconds the wasp got up and flew home again, quite unperturbed. The robber-fly did not get up, and she was not quite unperturbed, but died as they die who are poisoned with formic acid, and very soon was still.

By the time the shadows crept across the entrance to the derelict mole-hole, warning the wasp back—for your true wasp is a worshiper of the sun—the queen had formed a disc of paper, and suspended there-from, in the middle, a stalk, also of paper, which widened out at its base, and became, as it were, the outlines of four six-sided cells. The cells were in the shape of a cross—that cross which you will always find at the foundation of the cities of the waspfolk, and, in a way, a sign or mark of their nationality—the cross in the market-square, so to speak, outwards from which the city grew.

The queen, satisfied apparently with her new city so far, hung up and went to sleep. When anything or anybody came to prospect for house lots, or edible victims, during the still, silent, silver night, she hummed very severely, like an electric fan, to let the intruders know who she was, and they mostly backed out again in a hurry. If they took a step nearer the hum rose an octave, and became very wicked, and that, so far as most of them were concerned, finished it.

Two, however, there were who would not take even that hint. One was a shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead, and next morning was found running about with his mouth somewhere concealed behind his ear, if one may be pardoned the expression, in consequence; and the other was a carnivorous beetle, in black, purple-shot armor, and armed with jaws toothed like lobsters' claws. The queen took some nasty scars from those same jaws before she got home with the poisoned point, a clean thrust 'twist breastplate and armlet, and the invader doubled up on the spot where he was, and had to be dragged out in the morning—not the dawning, for the sun had well stoked up before our wasp would have anything to do with him.