194 LIFE STORIES OF AUSTRALIAN INSECTS. 



Life History of the Paper Nest Wasp. — Thest 

 wasps are social in habit, that is, they have a home 

 common to a community. There are three castes 

 (a) males, (b) females, (c) workers. The latter 

 are females which do not lay eggs but take charge 

 of the home. The nest and the community last 

 but for one year. In the autumn the males and 

 females emerge. The males have no sting with 

 which the queens and workers are armed. Also 

 the males have seven segments in the abdomen, 

 while the others have six. The colouring of the 

 three castes is similar, so that it is hard to dis- 

 tinguish a stingless male from the others, hence he 

 is protected. The females or queens are usually 

 larger than the workers. In the autumn the males 

 and workers die, and the fertilised queens winter 

 over, hiding in cracks in logs, trees, under stones. 

 When spring time comes the queen comes out 

 from her winter shelter and flies to a tree or post, 

 and begins to tear away pieces of the wood in 

 shreds and converts it into a kind of paste, prob- 

 ably with the aid of the salivary juices of the mouth. 

 Thus the wood is reduced to the "paper" of which 

 the nest is made. The mother, or queen of PoUstes 

 tasmaniensis, begins the nest by forming a patch of 

 sticky, dark material, and then a stout, black, very 

 slender stalk, which is smooth and often shining 

 as if covered with a kind of varnish. It is placed 

 so that the nest is held downwards, thus a roof is 

 formed by the bases of the cells. (See Plate 24, Fig. 

 7). This roof is sometimes covered with a smooth 

 encrusting secretion which seems to make it 



