34 Linnean Society. [May 1, 



and the remainder to the side wall immediately below it. The hole 

 under the slates by which the wasps went in and out was originally 

 made by sparrows ; and at this part, and among another portion of 

 the wasp's nest, appeared the remains of the old bird's nest, con- 

 sisting chiefly of straw with a few feathers. The entire wasp's nest 

 bore the appearance of having been the fabric of several years, some 

 of it being apparently older and in inferior preservation to the rest, 

 as well as somewhat blackened. Externally the nest is beautifully 

 parti-coloured, the layers of the various substances used in the con- 

 struction presenting circular or curved lines or rings, which are 

 brown, bufF, yellow, grey, dark grey, nearly black, &c. ; altogether 

 exhibiting a very elegant shell-like structure, w^hich Mr. Hogg has 

 not observed in any other British wasp's nest. These layers he re- 

 gards as indicative of the mode in which the wasps carried on their 

 labours ; one wasp, or set of wasps, having made use of the same 

 substance (such as wood, lichen, the bark of a tree, &c.), collected 

 from the same place, and of the same colour, to form one circular 

 layer or ring ; and then having been succeeded by another wasp, or 

 set of wasps, using other substances taken from another spot, and of 

 a different colour ; and so on. 



Mr, Hogg states that he has recently seen in the British Museum 

 a very similar nest sent from China by Mr. Say ; but the species of 

 the Chinese wasp, or even its genus, is not stated. He had at first 

 hoped that his nest might have proved the work of the new wasp 

 taken by him in his garden at Norton some years ago, and described 

 by Mr. Frederick Smith, in his Memoir on British Wasps, under 

 the name of Vespa borealis ; but on submitting to that gentleman 

 specimens taken alive from the nest, they were determined by him 

 to be neuters of the common wasp, Vespa vulgaris. 



The author concludes by stating his intention to present the por- 

 tion of the nest exhibited to the British Museum, where, if deemed 

 worthy of preservation, it may be placed next to the Chinese nest, 

 which it so closely resembles. 



Read in continuation a paper " On the Anatomy and Development 

 of certain Chalcididce and Ichneumonida," &c. Part II, By George 

 Newport, Esq., F.R.S. & L.S. 



The author first read a " Postscript" to the preceding part of this 

 paper, abstracted at p. 23, one object of which was to confirm his 

 statement, which had been questioned by Mr. Westwood, that he 

 discovered the insect, Anthophorabia, in 1831, at which time he had 

 made known the fact to D. W. Nash, Esq., now a Fellow of the 



