A Wasp At Table

Even to a naturalist with a tolerant feeling for all living things,
both great and small, it is not always an unmixed pleasure to have a
wasp at table. I have occasionally felt a considerable degree of
annoyance at the presence of a self-invited guest of that kind.

Some time ago when walking I sat down at noon on a fallen tree-trunk to
eat my luncheon, which consisted of a hunk of cake and some bananas.
The wind carried the fragrance of the fruit into the adjacent wood, and
very soon wasps began to arrive, until there were fifteen or twenty
about me. They were so aggressive and greedy, almost following every
morsel I took into my mouth, that I determined to let them have as much
as they wanted--_and something more_! I proceeded to make a mash
of the ripest portions of the fruit mixed with whisky from my pocket-
flask, and spread it nicely on the bark. At once they fell on it with
splendid appetites, but to my surprise the alcohol produced no effect.
I have seen big locusts and other important insects tumbling about and
acting generally as if demented after a few sips of rum and sugar, but
these wasps, when they had had their full of banana and whisky, buzzed
about and came and went and quarrelled with one another just as usual,
and when I parted from them there was not one of the company who could
be said to be the worse for liquor. Probably there is no more steady-
headed insect than the wasp, unless it be his noble cousin and prince,
the hornet, who has a quite humanlike unquenchable thirst for beer and
cider.

But the particular wasp at table I had in my mind remains to be spoken
of. I was lunching at the house of a friend, the vicar of a lonely
parish in Hampshire, and besides ourselves there were five ladies, four
of them young, at our round table. The window stood open, and by-and-by
a wasp flew in and began to investigate the dishes, the plates, then
the eaters themselves, impartially buzzing before each face in turn. On
his last round, before taking his departure, he continued to buzz so
long before my face, first in front of one eye then the other, as if to
make sure that they were fellows and had the same expression, that I at
length impatiently remarked that I did not care for his too flattering
attentions. And that was really the only inconsiderate or inhospitable
word his visit had called forth. Yet there were, I have said, five
ladies present! They had neither welcomed nor repelled him, and had not
regarded him; and although it was impossible to be unconscious of his
presence at table, it was as if he had not been there. But then these
ladies were cyclists: one, in addition to the beautiful brown colour
with which the sun had painted her face, showed some dark and purple
stains on cheek