COUNTRY LIFE
IN spite of what the Cotswold folk used to call " casalty" weather. September has been a waspish month, both literally and figuratively. W. H. Hudson had a soft spot for wasps, but he was neither gardener nor orchardist. Their fleets of dragonish longships sailing the air have reaped such plunder as must have soured the temper.of many a grower, sufficiently tried already by a fantastic economic system. They have eaten into the cellophane coverings of jam-pots and died of a surfeit in the jam ; they have drunk themselves dizzy on the cider of unripe apples, while, as for the plums and greengages, they have exacted such an Income Tax as would satisfy a modern government. Presumably wasps, as honest predators, should play their part in the economy and balance of nature. But who sees the modern wasp coping with flies? They have become a kind of dissipated jeunesse doree, sottish tipplers and gluttons with no aim but to fuddle themselves into insensibility.
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