540 Short Communications : — 



nest had been taken from the pear tree, the wasps com- 

 menced building another ; but my pleasure in watching them 

 was quickly stopped by an ignorant person's destroying the 

 whole of the wasps. — Anon. Brixton, August, 1832. 



See the notices of hanging bees' nests in Vol. II. p. 254. 

 The late Rev. L. Guilding has, in a collection of remarks from 

 him lying by us, the following observations : — 



It is much more probable that the clay-like nests were those 

 of the Termites often found high in trees. 



The Wasps of Tropical America often, too, suspend their pen- 

 sile Nests from the Branches of Trees. — One now before me, 

 in my study, is bigger than my head, and contains many 

 firmly built chambers communicating by a hole running up 

 the side. Though constructed of paper mortar, they are very 

 hard. Some idea may be formed of these natural hives, from 

 the 50th plate of Leach's Zoological Miscellany, vol. i., which 

 represents the small nest * of Fespa britannica. In the 

 tropics, these little hives are formed by various genera, and 

 vary much in form and solidity : sometimes they are flat, hav- 

 ing all the cells on one side, perfectly exposed. I have seen 

 small wild honey-making bees sent from Tobago. They were 

 put into a square box covered with glass, and lodged their 

 honey in rude waxen cells, like our English humming bees. 

 I fear they did not thrive, as they were evidently much trou- 

 bled by the necessity of blocking up their doorway with wax, 

 to keep out the intrusive ants. — Lansdown Guilding. St. Vin- 

 cent, May 1. f830. 



On " A curious Ball containing Bees," described in Vol. II. 

 p. 404, 405., Mr. Guilding offers, also, this remark : — 



It was probably the nest of Fespa britannica figured by 

 Leach in his Zoological Miscellany. Here I have seen bees 

 make use of the ovate clay nests, built by vespoid insects. — 

 L. Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 1830. 



[On pendulous nests of wasps see also the Field Naturalisfs 

 Magazine for October, p. 447 — 449.] 



Lepidopterous Insects. — Singular Variety ofHypercompa 

 dominula. [fig. 72.) — Sir, I send herewith a very extraordinary 

 variety of the scarlet tiger moth (Hypercompa dominula Ste- 

 phens), which has been forwarded to me by Mr. Weaver of 

 Birmingham ; who informs me that it was taken, along with 

 other specimens with the usual markings, near Whittlesea Mere, 

 by Mr. Brown of Peterborough. The upper wings are en- 

 tirely of a dark glossy metallic green, resembling almost the 



* Apiarium is the old term applied to bee-stands : alveare may be con- 

 fined to the artificial hive ; while alveus may designate those bodies formed 

 by bees and wasps themselves from their own resources. 



