Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1896 — The Mud Wasp. [ARTICLE]

The Mud Wasp.

For centuries the mud wasp has built its Cjells of soft mud. In the bottom of these cells the female lays its minute egg. building its mud home just the size that the young will be when grown. Before closing its mud-walled cell the w'asp catches a suitable sized spider, injects into its body a fluid that causes it to remain torpid through the winter, until with the warmth of returning spring the young wasp grows and consumes the spider for food, thus gaining strength to break the mud walls and emerge into the outer world a fullwinged insect. Yet no mud wasp from the beginning has ever seen its young. Water rents are higher at Pittsburg than in any other city in America.