1903. Carpenter & Beresford. — Vespa austriaca &> V. ru/a. 233 



parthenogenetically, of workers of the same form, but this 

 explanation cannot be put forward for the 7'ufa worker, and 

 the fact that some of the riifa drones varied so markedly 

 towards atistriaca makes the explanation very improbable for 

 them. We conclude, therefore, that the old austtiaca queen 

 was the foundress of the nest, and that both the riifa and 

 atistfiaca forms are her offspring. The verj^ interesting obser- 

 vations of Sladen ('99) on the habits of colonies of Bombus, 

 suggest that our view is not inconsistent with, at least, an 

 occasional " cuckoo-parasitism " on the part of Vespa aiisi?'iaca. 

 For he states that a queen belonging to the virginalis form of 

 B. terrestris often invades the nest of a colony of the luco7'-uni 

 form, kills the rightful queen, and " takes possession of the 

 nest, getting the huoruni workers to raise its young." 



In support of our view as to the nature of V. austriaca, we 

 hope to obtain evidence at some time of actual nest- 

 construction by a queen of that form in the spring. We can 

 only state on this subject at present, that of twenty- three 

 austriaca queens captured at Fenagh in the spring of 1902, 

 six were taken on a Nordmann fir, among a number of other 

 queen and worker wasps which were busily collecting fibre 

 for making their nests, and gathering turpentine from the 

 fir-needles, as is their constant habit. Several observers have 

 called attention to the fact that V^ austriaca is on the wing 

 later than other w^asps (Cuthbert, '97 ; Barrington and 

 Moffat, '01). The observations of one of us at Fenagh, 

 however ('03), tends to show that V. ru/a is also late in 

 appearing, while its numbers increase in those years when 

 V. austriaca is most abundant. It has been pointed out that 

 the latter has a more sluggish flight (Gardner, '94), and emits 

 a louder hum (Buckle, '99) than V- ru/a. 



As regards the precise relationship between Vespa austriaca 

 and V. ru/a^ we believe that the former represents the ances- 

 tral stock of the latter, because V. ru/a shows distinctly more 

 tendency to vary, while the rarity and discontinuous distribu- 

 tion of V' austriaca suggest that it is the older form. Further, 

 we have seen that V- ru/a shows several points of resemblance 

 to the tree-building wasps, and that this is still more markedly 

 the case with V. austriaca. Attention has been drawn 



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