social-wasps. 71 



Social Wasps. 



The nest of the common wasp ( Vespa vulgaris) 

 attracts more or less the attention of every body; but 

 its interior architecture is not so well known as it 

 deserves to be, for its singular ingenuity, in which it 

 rivals even that of the hive-bee (^Jlpis mellifica). 

 In their general economy, the social, or republican 

 wasps, closely resemble the humble-bee [Bombus)^ 

 every colony being founded by a single female who 

 has survived the winter, to the rigours of which all 

 her summer associates of males and working wasps 

 uniformily fall victims. Nay, out of three hundred 

 females which may be found in one vespiary, or 

 wasp's nest, towards the close of autumn, scarcely ten 

 or a dozen survive till the ensuing spring, at which 

 season they awake from their hybernal lethargy, and 

 begin with ardour the labours of colonization. 



It may be interesting to follow one of these mo- 

 ther wasps through her several operations, in which 

 she merits more the praise of industry than the queen 

 of a bee-hive, who does nothing, and never moves 

 without a numerous train of obedient retainers, al- 

 ways ready to execute her commands, and to do her 

 homage. The mother wasp, on the contrary, is at 

 first alone, and is obliged to perform every species 

 of drudgery herself. 



Her first care, after being roused to activity by the 

 returning warmth of the season, is to discover a 

 place suitable for her intended colony; and, ac- 

 cordingly, in the spring, wasps may be seen prying 

 into every hole of a hedge bank, particularly where 

 field-mice have burrowed. Some authors report 

 that she is partial, to the forsaken galleries of the 

 mole, but this does not accord with our observations, 

 as we have never met with a single vespiary in any 

 situation likely to have been frequented by moles. 



