320 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS, 



jaws, tongue, and legs. This operation is repeated several times, until at 

 length, by aid of fresh supplies of the material and the combined exer- 

 tion of so many workmen, the proper number of layers of paper that 

 are to compose the roof is finished. This paper is as thin as that of the 

 letter which you are reading ; and you may form an idea of the labor 

 which even the exterior of a wasp's nest requires, on being told that not 

 fewer than fifteen or sixteen sheets of it are usually placed above each 

 other with slight intervening spaces, making the whole upwards of an 

 inch and a half in thickness. When the dome is completed, the upper- 

 most comb is next begun, in which, as well as all the other parts of the 

 building, precisely the same material and the same process, with little 

 variation, are employed. In the structure of the connecting pillars, there 

 seems a greater quantity of glue made use of than in the rest of the work, 

 doubtless with the view of giving them a superior solidity. 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 succes- 

 sively proceeds until the whole is finished. As a comparatively small 

 proportion of the society is engaged in constructing the nest, its entire 

 completion is the work of several months: yet, though the fruit of such 

 severe labor, it has not been finished many weeks before winter comes on, 

 when it merely serves for the abode of a few benumbed females, and is 

 entirely abandoned at the approach 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 roOgh texture ; 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, suspending it in the 

 corners of out-houses, &ic. ; but there are other species which construct 

 their habitations in open daylight, affixing them to the branches of shrubs 

 or tree. 



One of these, described by Latreille, the work of Vesya holsatica, a 

 species not uncommon with us, resembles in shape a cone of the cedar of 

 Lebanon, and is composed of an envelop and the comb, the former con- 

 sisting of three partial envelops. The comb comprises about thirty 

 hexagonal cells circularly arranged, those of the circumference being lower 

 and smaller.^ 



A vespiary somewhat similar to the above, but of a depressed globular 

 figure, and composed of more numerous envelops, so as to assume a con- 

 siderable resemblance to a half-expanded Provence rose, is figured by 

 Reaumur^: and for a very beautiful specimen apparently of the same kind, 

 except that it contains but one stage of cells, which was found in the 

 garden at East Dale, I am indebted to the kindness of Henry Thompson, 

 Esq., of Hull. 



Another species'* attaches its small group of about twenty inverted 

 crucible-like cells to a piece of wood without any covering^, and similar 



» Reaum. vi. m6m. 6. * Annates du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. i. 289. 



3 vi t. 19. f. i. 2. * Rosel's Vesp. t. 7. f. 8. 



* Rosel, n. viii. 30. Descriptions of several other wasps' nests have been publi.'.hed in 

 various works ; but much uncertainty exists as to the different species forniing each, and as 

 to how far their apparent dissimilarity has resulted from one having been in a more or less 



