SOCIAL-WASPS. 



iji 



augmented, with the design, perhaps, of more effectually 

 excluding the light. 



The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in structure 

 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 underground, but in the cavities of 

 trees, or in the thatch or under the eaves of barns. 

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



Hornet's Nest in its first stage. 



had not been long begun, and had it transferred to the 

 outside of his study-window ; but in consequence, as 

 he imagined, of the absence of the foundress-hornet at 

 the time it was removed, he could not get the other 

 five hornets, of which the colony consisted, either to 

 add to the building or repair the damages which it had 

 sustained. 



M. Reaumur differs from our English naturalists, A\hite, 



