omething better than cry "Caw-waw" when they opened
their beaks.

Just then who should come buzzing along but a wasp, a regular gorgeous
fellow, all black and gold, and with such a thin waist that he looked
almost cut in two.

"Now then, old spiketail," said the starling, "keep your distance; none
of your stinging tricks here, or I'll cut that waist of yours in two
with one snip."

"Who wants to sting, old peck-path?" said the wasp. "It's very hard one
can't go about one's work without being always sneered and jeered and
fleered at by every body."

"Work," said the starling, "ho-ho-ho, work; why, you don't work; you're
always buzzing about, and idling; it's only bees that work and make
honey."

"There now," said the wasp, "that's the way you people go on: you hear
somebody say that the bees are industrious and we are idle, and then you
believe it, and tell everybody else so, but you never take the trouble
to see if it's true; and so we poor wasps have to go through the world
with a bad name, and people say we sting. Well, so we do if we are
touched; and so do bees too, just as bad as we do, only the little
gluttons make a lot of sweet honey and wax, and so they get all the
praise."

And then away went the little black-and-yellow fellow with his beautiful
gauzy wings shining in the sun, and he flew over the garden wall, and
was soon scooping away at a ripe golden-yellow plum that was hanging
from the wall just ready to pick; and then off he flew again to his
nest, where dozens more wasps were going in and out of the hole in a
fallen willow-tree, all soft like touchwood, and in it the wasps had
scooped out such a hole, where they had been working away quite as hard
and industriously as the bees their cousins; and here they had made
comb, and cells, and stored up food, and instead of their cells being
made of wax, they were composed of beautiful paper that these busy
little insects had made. There were grubs, too, and eggs that would
turn to grubs, and afterwards to wasps; and here the wasps worked away,
in and out all day, as busy as could be. But they had a very hard life
of it, for everyone was trying to kill the poor things, and set traps
for them to tumble into and be smothered in sweet stuff. But though
people did not think so, the wasps did a great deal of good, and among
other things they killed a great many tiresome little flies that were
always buzzing and humming about; and the wasps went after them