Dame Potter and the Little Clay Jug

I T was so surprising to find a little clay jug sitting on a willow branch that the Lad just leaned back against a clump of willows and stared at it. Yes, it was a real jug, shaped something like the beautiful one on the mantel shelf at home, only much smaller.

But of what use could a jug be on a willow branch? He stretched up on tiptoe and tried to peep in. There was no stopper in the mouth of the jug but it was dark inside and he could not see what was in it.

Just then a queer little creature alighted on the branch near the jug. She had a very very slender waist, as you can see by looking at her picture, but you must not blame her for this because she was a kind of wasp and grew that way quite naturally. She held something in her mouth and she walked up to the jug with a restless shake of her wings and dropped it right in.

"Is it your jug?" asked the Lad in amazement, "and what did you put into it?"

The queer little wasp answered never a word. She just walked along the branch with a nervous flirt of her wings and then flew away without paying any attention to him. But he was so excited and curious to know what she had dropped into the jug that he kept his eye on it hoping that she would come back. Sure enough she did and before very long and this time he did not stop to notice her thread-like waist and the uneasy way she had of lifting her wings. He looked straight at her mouth and when he saw what she was carrying he was more excited and curious than ever. It was a little green caterpillar she brought back and put into the jug!

Now this particular little boy knew about caterpillars because sometimes he kept them for pets. He knew, among other things, that he had to keep them covered up or they would be sure to crawl into places where his mother did not want them. So he watched the top of the jar to see the little green caterpillar crawl out. He watched and watched and watched but the little green caterpillar never even showed the top of its little round head.

While he was wondering about this, back flew the wasp with another little green caterpillar. Later she came with another and after a long while with still another. She poked them all into the jug and not one of them crawled out.

At last she came back without any caterpillar. She did have her mouth full of something though and she was very busy at the top of the jug. When she flitted away again the eager little watcher stood up on tiptoe and looked. There was the mouth of the jug all plugged tight with clay like the rest of the jug only it was darker because it had not had time to dry.

By this time the sun was so low in the west that it was growing dark and quite time to be leaving the willows. But what little boy could turn his back on all the mysteries that seemed to be sealed up in that little clay jug? Not this young naturalist you may be sure. Instead, he cut off the twig, jug and all, and scampered home with it.

"Did you ever find a cunning little jug like this?" he asked all out of breath as soon as he could find his father.

"I did," was the brief though interested reply.

"Was it stuffed full of tiny caterpillars?"

"It was," did not seem like a very long answer so he tried again by asking a very leading question.

"What did you do with your jug?"

"I watched mine," suggested his father with a twinkle and a smile that the little questioner understood. So he watched his clay jug. He looked at it many times a day and everytime he looked he wondered. He wondered why a queer little wasp should be a potter and make a little clay jug. He wondered why she had packed it with caterpillars. He wondered what they were doing inside. Most of all he wondered what was going to happen next,—something always does happen next when you play the game of watching insect things, you know.

It happened about the twelfth day, when he spied a hole in the side of the jug. A little round head poked out. And it was not a caterpillar head! Something crept out of the hole, and it was not a caterpillar! No, it was a queer little slender waisted creature who lifted her wings in an uneasy way when she walked.

"But I saw the caterpillars go into the jug and I saw the wasp come out," protested the Lad. "I did watch but I do not know what to think about it at all. What do you think?" he pleaded.

"I think," ventured his father, who somehow seemed much more ready to talk than he had twelve days before, "that Dame Potter put an egg into the jug."

"O," he said. Then he thought for a very long time before he added, "And the Baby Potter hatched out of that egg and ate up all the little green caterpillars, I guess. But why didn't they crawl away?"

"Dame Potter looked out for that. She stung each caterpillar and made it too limp to walk but did not quite kill it. So, you see, the food stayed fresh and did not decay in the warm summer weather, and the baby wasp had plenty to eat. A young Potter wasp thrives on tender, juicy caterpillar meat as well as a young bird does, only the bird's father and mother catch fresh ones every time and Dame Potter has a way of catching them all at once and fixing enough for one little wasp in one jug-nest and then going off and making another jug for the next little wasp. Father Potter never helps build the jugs and he never helps hunt for the caterpillars so the Dame is kept very busy providing for her children."

"It seems to me," said the Lad after his father had told him all this and much more about the wonderful solitary wasp and her ways, "It seems to me that Dame Potter was a pretty nice mother to make that little clay jug for a nest and pack it full of food. She really took a good deal of pains, didn't she?"