"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