I 



I 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 3I9 



layers, but In one only, their entrance being always downwards : conse- 

 quently the upper part of the comb, composed of the bases of the cells, 

 which are not pyramidal but slightly convex, forms a nearly level floor, 

 on which the inhabitants can conveniently pass and repass, spaces of about 

 half an inch high being left between each comb. Although the combs 

 are fixed to the sides of the nest, they would not be sufficiently strong 

 without further support. The ingenious builders, therefore, connect each 

 comb to that below it by a number of strong cylindrical columns or pillars, 

 having, according to the rules of architecture their base, and capital 

 wider than the shaft, and composed of the same paper-like material used 

 in other parts of the nest, but of a more compact substance. The middle 

 combs are connected by a rustic colonnade of from forty to fifty of these 

 pillars ; the upper and lower combs by a smaller number. 



The cells, which in a populous nest are not fewer than 16,000, are 

 of different sizes, corresponding to that of the three orders of individuals 

 which compose the community ; the largest for the grubs of females, the 

 smallest for those of workers. The last always occupy an entire comb, 

 while the cells of the males and females are often intermixed. — Besides 

 openings which are left between the walls of the combs to admit of access 

 from one to the other, there are at the bottom of each nest two holes, by 

 one of which the wasps uniformly enter, and through the other issue from 

 the nest, and thus avoid all confusion or interruption of their common 

 labors. As the nest is often a foot and a half under ground, it is requisite 

 that a covered way should lead to its entrance. This is excavated by the 

 wasps, who are excellent miners, and is often very long and tortuous, 

 forming a beaten road to the subterranean city, well known to the inhabit- 

 ants, though its entrance is concealed from incurious eyes. The cavity 

 itself, which contains the nest, is either the abandoned habitation of moles 

 or field-mice, or a cavern purposely dug out by the wasps, which exert 

 themselves with such industry as to accomplish the arduous undertaking in 

 a few days. 



When the cavity and entrance to it are completed, the next part of the 

 process is to lay the foundations of the city to be included in it, which, 

 contrary to the usual custom of builders, wasps begin at the top, continu- 

 ing downwards. I have already told you that the coatings which compose 

 the dome are a sort of rough but thin paper, and that the rest of the nest 

 is composed of the same substance variously applied. "Whence," you 

 will inquire, " do the wasps derive it ?" They are manufacturers of the 

 article, and prepare it from a material even more singular than any of 

 those which have of late been proposed for this purpose ; namely, the 

 fibres of wood.^ These they detach by means of their jaws from window- 

 frames, posts, and rails, he, and when they have amassed a heap of the 

 filament, moisten the whole with a few drops of a viscid glue from their 

 mouth, and, kneading it with their jaws into a sort of paste or papier 

 mdchc, fly off with it to their nest. This ductile mass they attach to that 

 part of the building upon which they are at work, walking backwards 

 and spreading it into laminae of the requisite thinness by means of their 



I Reaumur says decaying wood, vi. 182.; but White asserts (and my own observations 

 confirm his opinion) that wasps obtain their paper from sovnd timber; hornets, only from 

 that which is decayed. White's Nat. Hist, by Marwick, ii. 228. 



