THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 49 



REMARKS ON THE HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE 



WOOD PAPER-MAKING WASPS. 



BY WILLIAM COUPER, OTTAWA, ONT. 



The history of the wasps of temperate America has not been recorded. It 

 appears that entomologists have no great dts-ire to study those interesting 

 insects; and although several species occur in Canada, we know little or 

 nothing of their natural history. One species, the spotted wood wasp 

 (Vtspa macuhita, Linn.), occurs commonly, as near as I can determine, 

 about every third year, in our northern woods. Having partially studied its 

 habits, and collected a series of the nests in all their stages, it is particularly 

 in regard to the latter that I claim attention, liut before I proceed to relate 

 what I have ascertained resrardimr their architecture, it will suffice to state 

 that each large nest which we notice suspended from trees towards the end 

 of summer consisted of a colony of males, females and workers or imperfect 

 females, as they are termed. The large nest is certainly the second, probably 

 the third structure which has been funned by an industrious colony of workers 

 during the warm months of summer. In this latitude, late in the fall and 

 eaily in spring, we find large and small females in a torpid state. They are 

 the generators of the forthcoming colonies, and the only livings remnant of 

 the lariie number of distinct individuals which inhabited one of the deserted 

 nests of the previous season. These females leave the nest on the approach 

 of cold weather in October, or according to the latitude where they occur, 

 and they then carry imoregnated ovaries from which are produced egsrs to 

 constitute a young colony of from eight to twelve workers in the following 

 spring. The gradual warmth, geuerally in the early part of May, awakens 

 the turpid female, and she emerges from her winter's abode to perpetuate her 

 species. After partaking of such food as can be procured at this season, she 

 is now prepared to fulfil another part of her mission — instinct teaches her 

 that she must be her own builder — and for this purpose she goes forth to 

 select a suitable sheltered situation. When this is found, she collects and 

 prepares woody fibre from weatherworn fences, &c , by which, in the course 

 of a week or ten days, she forms a little pretty spherical paper nest. After 

 it is perfected, she attaches a single tier of hexagonal cells, in each of which 

 an egg is deposited. The first e^ is placed in the central cell, and as far as 

 I have been able to watch the parent, and from examination of several of 

 these small nests, I am of the opinion that she does not deposit all her eggs 

 simultaneously, but that there is a lapse of time between the deposition of 

 each c^. I am led to this conclusion, because in several nests which I have 

 examined, larvae occupied the central cells, while some of the surrounding 

 ones contained eggs ; besides, I have ascertained that the young workers 

 issue from their cells at stated periods, one after another. Here, then, we 



