Afield With Ranger Mac

Wasps and the Invention of Paper

Announcer: Afield With Ranger Mack, a series of conservation and nature talks by Wacland McNeill, known to thousands of people in Wisconsin as Ranger Mack.

Wakelin McNeill: It would be well for all of us to know how inseparable we are from the world of nature. How dependent we are upon the gifts of nature. It would add an zest to life if we knew that, not only in the out of darkness, but in the darkness of nature. We know how inseparable we are from the world of nature. How dependent we are upon the gifts of nature. It would add an zest to life if we knew that. Not only in the out of doors but wherever we are, even in the kitchen.

The food we eat. The clothes we wear, the homes that protect us and shelter us. The drugs that we use when in distress. The articles that we use in our pleasures. The things that enhance the beauty of our homes all come from nature.

The tact is the onward march of civilization can be traced by the discoveries that man made, the secrets of nature and then the application of these secrets that he made in the making of things that we use, that we want and that we need in light.

Now one of the great discoveries is the making of paper. It took centuries for us to get the paper that we used today. It is a wonderful heritage that has come down to us. From the time that the Chinese made paper from the preparus plant down to the wood pulp of today, it was a steady growth. It was a series of discoveries that we are going to relate now.

The Chinese made paper from the preparus plant. They took the outer sheath rough sheath off the stem of the preparus plant and then peeled off the inner sheaths, laid them edge to edge, carefully, then crosswise edge to edge. From the layer and then subjected the layer to heavy pressure and they had preparus. Non-p preparus of course they recorded many of the documents from which we get information with regard to civilization of those ancient days.

The Chinese made paper out of cotton fiber. To great care they laid these fibers side by side and then subjected those to pressure and made paper in that way, all behind. The moors found out a process of making paper by using old rags, disintegrating these old rags and subjecting them to pressure. They carried this process to Europe and that is the way that paper used to be made, all behind, crude processes, paper was scarce as you might know.

One day a German rag maker by the name of Keller was rambling through the woods and he stumbled on to a wasp’s nest. A nest similar to the one that you see here. But it was a nest that had been broken up and he took some of the other coverings of this nest and examined it very carefully, tore it apart. He noticed that it was in layers. Then he took it home and worked with it at home. He analyzed it and made the discovery that it was made from wood pulp.

I suppose that when he made that discovery, he felt so elated that he yelled just like Archimedes did when he discovered the law of Pacific gravity. I found it, I found it. It’s made of wood pulp and so he went back to the place that he found these found the nest and he watched the wasps at work. Daily he returned to that place and watched them build their nest.

And he discovered that the wasps went to old wood, wood that was weathered, wood from which the auger days of it could be easily removed. Some of it even so rotten that it was pulp. He watched the wasps as they worked, ticking off the material, chewing it thoroughly, getting a ball of it and then going back to the place where they were constructing their nursery.

Then he watched them as they spread this ball, these balls of pulp out over the nest. They would come in with a ball and with their front feet and with their heads roll out the ball of pulp. Making each addition along the edge of the former one and so you can see them in these circles or in these strips in just that way. And when you tear the nest apart, it is easier to tear along those lines than it is a cost way. The difference in color is due to the difference in pulp from which the insects took their egg, it took their pulp.

One time the wasps made a nest from a fourth of July decoration. They took the crepe paper, the red white and blue and treated it in just the same way. As the dough, the wood pulp and made the nursery out of that material. It was a red white and blue, a patriotic nursery as you can imagine.

This is a beautiful nest, complete, no damage has been done. You see the wasps after they have spread out the pulp. Water proof the outside so that it is impervious to water, sheds the wind and makes the nursery within well protected. The entrance is at the apex of the conical shaped nursery and there some of the workers are all stationed just as they are in the beehive to see that no enemies make an entrance to the nursery.

Announcer: Afield With Ranger Mac, a series of conservation and nature talks by Wakeland McNeill. A man who is known to thousands of people here in Wisconsin as Ranger Mac. [Pause]