2IO 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



non-appearance of the queens, since the weather was 

 sunny and hot, and consequently favourable to insect 

 flight. Over ninety males were taken at the nest, 

 and many took flight as I was picking them out of 

 the large cavity at the entrance to the nest. More- 

 over, others would probably have taken flight during 

 the two intervening days. 



September iJtA. — This evening, in a garden, I saw 

 ripe gooseberries, hanging on different bushes, clothed 

 with wasps, which were eating them out from beneath, 

 some being within the fruits. As many as six and 

 even eight wasps clung to a single gooseberry ; and 

 to have gathered the fruit without being stung would 

 have been a somewhat difficult task, such were the 

 numbers of the wasps and the fruits attacked. 



September igt/i. — A very large and strong nest of 

 the Vespa vulgaris was to-day in part broken up, and 

 from it many of the large perfect females, or queens, 

 were observed to take flight, flying off in a direct 

 line though heavily, and with a humming deep and 

 peculiar. Worker-wasps carried away from it frag- 

 ments of the broken-up case or shell ; this I have also 

 observed them do on other occasions when a nest has 

 been partially destroyed. From such nests, too, I 

 have observed the workers carrying away dying or 

 dead larvre, which had probably been dislodged from 

 the cells and injured in the breaking up of the nest. 



September 12nd. — To-day another strong nest of the 

 Vespa vulgaris was dug out of a dyke. There were 

 in it numbers of the perfect females, many males, and 

 plenty of workers, the latter as vicious and aggressive 

 as ever, notwithstanding that their active industry 

 had slackened, and that the colony was obviously 

 nearing its close. On the nest being partially broken 

 up, the perfect females, or queens, rose up out of it 

 and the cavity, and flew off heavily, with a direct 

 flight, and with the deep and peculiar humming sound 

 already mentioned, which differs very perceptibly 

 from the sound emitted by the males or drones, and 

 the workers. 



Last year (1882), at Haddington and Gifford, in 

 Scotland, wasps were very numerous during the 

 month of July. Along the side of the river Tyne, 

 a little below the Wauk-Mili, at the former place, 

 numbers were to be seen any sunny morning busily 

 engaged biting off the wood fibres with which they 

 form their paper, from palings and posts, as well as 

 from tree-trunks and stumps from which the bark had 

 been peeled. Also, by the side of a curling-pond, 

 the door and its lintels of the little house in which 

 was kept the curling-gear had scarcely a square inch 

 that was free from the narrow shallow channels due 

 to this agency, and which were seldom free from 

 wasps making up their little pellets of fibres. At the 

 latter place, I had presented to me a beautiful nest 

 of the Vespa vulgaris which had been built in a bee- 

 box, or eke, upon which, as a stand, a hive of bees 

 had been set. After swarming, this hive was joined 

 to another to strengthen it, and the box placed upon 



a board upon which were burning rags, to suffocate 

 the unwelcome intruders. It was then found that the 

 wasps' nest had been suspended from the top of the 

 box, having been built around two of the three square 

 wooden bars with which the interior of it was 

 furnished for the bees to suspend their combs from. 

 In this position it was when I first saw it, having 

 been allowed to remain in situ. The portion of the 

 two bars that was enclosed in the nest-structure was 

 very much gnawed away, for, probably, material for 

 nest-building. There were five or six tiers of comb 

 in the nest ; and the cells were beautifully regular 

 and hexagonal, notwithstanding that they, like the 

 shell or case, were formed of fragments of rotten 

 wood, and were brittle and friable. The lady who 

 kindly gave me this nest, told me that on a former 

 occasion, in this same garden, a colony of wasps had 

 established themselves in an empty barrel, the only 

 medium of entrance and exit being the bung-hole ! 

 Also, that wasps are exceedingly fond of fresh 

 herrings, frequently swarming upon those hung up 

 on the outside of cottages to dry. 



With further reference to the food of wasps, I may 

 mention that I have seen the queens at the male 

 catkins of the willow, at the flowers of the butterbur 

 (Petasites), the gooseberry, and those of a cultivated 

 white saxifrage, in the month of May ; and, in June, 

 at the flowers of the rhododendrons. In August, I 

 have taken the male wasp, or drone, at the flowers of 

 the figwort (Scrophularia) ; and, in September, at 

 those of a thistle. In summer, while standing by 

 the nest of the common wasp ( V. vulgaris), I have 

 seen workers carry in large tipulae, minus head, limbs 

 and wings ; and a spider, minus all its limbs. On 

 April nth, 1883, however, the conduct of a large 

 and handsome queen wasp puzzled me completely : 

 she was flying about the unexpanded buds of the 

 hawthorn in a hedgerow, alighting and mouthing 

 over them ; and on examining a few buds in the 

 vicinity of her operations, I found a drop of pellucid 

 liquor standing on two or three of them. Whence 

 had this drop come ? Was this what the wasp was 

 in search of? She alighted and mouthed over several 

 within a small space and a short time ; and these 

 buds were not at the bottom of the hedge ; nor was 

 she searching for a nest-site. Had she wounded the 

 buds with her mandibles, and caused the liquor to 

 flow for the purpose of obtaining it as aliment ? Or, 

 was it an extravasation of the juices of the plant, — a 

 sort of spring honey-dew — of which the wasp took 

 advantage ? The weather for several days previous 

 had been peculiar — fine, mild, and growing on the 

 whole, but the air cool and frequently murky, the 

 wind being easterly and north-easterly ; the birds 

 sang on all sides and above, and the atmosphere was 

 full of insect life. 



In the summer of 1885, I again pried into the 

 habits and domestic economy of the four species of 

 wasps — Vespa sylvestris, rufa, Germaniea, and 



