HABITS AND BIOLOHY OF THE COMMON WASP 319 



The soil was carefully removed from one side of the nest, 

 revealing the typical globose, beautifully striated structure 

 built by Vespa vulgaris, Linn. The general construction of 

 such a nest has been often described, and I will mention only 

 such details as bear upon the nest-building activities to be 

 discussed later. 



Size of Nest and Method of Examination. — The nest was 

 spherical, roughly 8 ins. in diameter, and it hung in a cavity 

 some 9 to c)\ ins. across, so that an air-space of i to f in, 

 surrounded the outer cover. The bottom of the cavity was 

 composed of angular fragments of stone which the wasps 

 had been unable to remove during their excavations, and 

 which formed a primitive rubble drain through which water 

 from the sides of the cavity could readily percolate. 



The cover of the nest was removed, and its upper portion 

 was found to be slightly over i in. in thickness, the thickness 

 being made up chiefly of air-spaces separated by delicate 

 wasp-paper partitions. 



There were 6 comb-flats in the nest, varying in diameter 

 from i^- to almost 7 ins. In the case of each the diameter 

 and the arrangements of the young stages were recorded in 

 detail, in order that by a simple method of computation, 

 information might be gained regarding the work of the 

 builders and their queen. Unfortunately, time did not admit 

 of the actual enumeration of all the cells and their contents 

 individually, and in this respect the following observations 

 fall short of perfection. Two of the largest combs, however, 

 were counted in detail, and in all the radial distances 

 occupied by eggs, grubs, and pupae respectively were 

 measured in inches and fractions of inches. As actual 

 enumeration showed that each square inch of comb contained 

 36 cells, it was a simple matter to obtain an approximation 

 to the numbers of each stage in each cell-flat.^ The error in 

 such a calculation is chiefly due to the slight irregularity 

 of arrangement of the immature forms, which, although 

 they lie in successive waves of life outwards from the 

 centre of the comb, are not deposited by the queen, or 



' By utilising the formula tt/--, or ->' x (radius)^, which gives the ar 

 of a circle in square inches from a knowledge of its radius in inch 



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