“Can you really make paper out of wood?” she asked.
“Of course. See my jaws? They are made to chew wood. Not decayed wood either. That may do for wasps who live under ground, for the brownish paper it makes isn’t strong enough to stand exposure. I choose good wood, and I make fine gray paper.”
“I wish you would tell me how you do it,” begged Ruth.
“Why, I simply gnaw the wood with my powerful jaws, and chew it until it is a pulpy mass, then I spread it in a sheet, wherever I wish it, and smooth and pat it with my feet. See how flat they are? I have heard of people beginning their houses at the cellar and building up. I consider that perfectly ridiculous. I always begin at the top. First, I make a slender stem or support to fasten the nest to the tree. Then I make three or more six-sided cells, which I hang from the support, and lay an egg in each, fastening it in with glue, for the open side of the cell is down. After this I enclose my cells with a wall of paper, and by this time, I am glad to say, my children begin to hatch, and though at first they look like horrid little worms, who can’t help themselves at all, I always know they will grow like me soon, and do a great deal of work.
“Feeding them isn’t an easy job, I can tell you, especially when it is added to my other duties, but, after a while, each baby weaves a little silken door over its cell, and goes to sleep. When she wakes she is a wasp, and the first thing she does is to wash her face and polish her antennæ, nor is it long before she gets to work. My first children are always workers, and after a number of them are hatched I can give my whole time to laying eggs.”
“But when the nest is once done?” began Ruth, who had forgotten her fear entirely and was now quite close to Madame Vespa.
“The nest done?” repeated the fiery lady. “You should know that our nest is never done. New cells must be added, old walls gnawed down, and fresh ones built up to enclose larger combs. Indeed, we are never idle. We ventilate as the bees do, and we have sentinels too. Later in the season I lay eggs that hatch out drones, and last of all, the queen eggs. They are——”
“Now you would think,” said a yellow jacket, buzzing up excitedly, “you would really think that Vespa might mention the fact that other wasps exist, but not she. Now I want to tell you, the white-faced hornet isn’t the whole thing. There are yellow jackets too.”
“We have eyes,” said Madame Vespa, “but go ahead and talk, and get through, for pity’s sake.”
“Yes, I mean to talk, and I shall get through when I please. We always insist that people shall respect our rights, and they generally do or—something happens. Our nests are quite as remarkable as Vespa’s, though we do not hang them from trees, as she is in the habit of doing. Our cousin, Mrs. Polistes, also makes a paper nest, but she builds only a layer of cells, with not a sign of a wall about them. Any one can look right in on her private life.”