SOCIAL-WASPS. 79 



wasps do not, like mason-bees, ever make use of the 

 same nest for more than one season. 



Both Reaumur and the younger Huber studied 

 the proceedings of the common wasp in the manner 

 which has been so successful in observing bees — by 

 means of glazed hives, and other contrivances. In 

 this, these naturalists were greatly aided by the ex- 

 treme affection of wasps for their young; for though 

 their nest is carried off, or even cut in various direc- 

 tions, and exposed to the light, they never desert it, 

 nor relax their attention to their progeny. When a 

 wasp's nest is removed from its natural situation, and 

 covered with a glass hive, the first operation of the 

 inhabitants is to repair the injuries it has suffered. 

 They carry off with surprising activity all the earth 

 or other matters which have fallen by accident into 

 the nest; and when they have got it thoroughly 

 cleared of everything extraneous, they begin to se- 

 cure it from further derangement, by fixing it to the 

 glass with papyraceous columns, similar to those 

 which we have already described. The breaches 

 which the nest may have suffered are then repaired, 

 and the thickness of the walls is augmented, with 

 the design, perhaps, for more effectually excluding 

 the hght. 



The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in struc- 

 ture with that of the wasp; but the materials are 

 considerably coarser, and the columns to which the 

 platforms of cells are suspended are larger and 

 stronger, the middle one being twice as thick as any 

 of the others. The hornet, also, does not build 

 under ground, but in the cavities of trees, or in 

 the thatch or under the eaves of barns. Reaumur 

 once found upon a wall a hornet's nest which had 

 not been long begun, and had it transferred to the 

 outside of his study window; but in consequence, 



