HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 505 



When the first comb is finished, the continuation of the 

 roof or walls of the building is brought down lower; a 

 new comb is erected; and thus the work successively 

 proceeds until the whole is finished. As a comparatively 

 small proportion of the society is engaged in construct- 

 ing the nestj its entire completion is the work of several 

 months : yet, though the fruit of such severe labour, it 

 has scarcely been finished a few weeks before winter 

 comes on, when it merely serves for the abode of a few 

 benumbed females, and is entirely abandoned at the ap- 

 proach of spring ; wasps never using the same nest for 

 more than one season ^. 



The nests of the hornet in their general construction 

 resemble those of the common wasp, but the paper of 

 which they are composed is of a much more rough tex- 

 ture; the columns which support the comb are higher 

 and more massive; and that in the centre larger than 

 the rest. ^ 



These last, as well as wasps, conceal their nest, sus- 

 pending it in the corners of outhouses, &c. ; but there 

 are other species which construct their habitations in 

 open day-light, affixing them to the branches of shrubs 

 or trees. 



One of these, described by Latreille, the work of 

 Vesj)a holsatica, a species not uncommon with us, re- 

 sembles in shape a cone of the cedar of Lebanon, and 

 is composed of an envelope and the comb, the former 

 consisting of three partial envelopes, each of the interior 

 of which is longer than the preceding. The comb com- 

 prises* about thirty hexagonal cells circularly arranged, 

 those of the circumference being lower and smaller ^. 

 ' Reaum. vi. Mem. 6. ^ Annalcs du Mus. d' Hist. Nat. i. 289. 



