70 



THE REPORT OF THE 



No. 19 



Our fences and out-buildings supply abundance of material for the busy workers tha 

 construct such dwellings. In the wilderness they resort to trees rent by tempests, etc., for 

 their supplies. 



The old church at Hull, Province of Quebec, was built of wood. It had never been 

 painted. One summer day, about thirty-seven years ago, when on a visit to Hull, I walked 

 up to see the church. It stood on a rocky knoll and was surrounded by cedars — the French 

 part of the town now covers the spot. 



I thought to look in at the windows, but these were high up ; and I did not venture to 

 climb, for busily employed about the building were hundreds of wasps, of different kinds. 

 They were eroding the surface of the wood with their jaws — procuring the materials for the 

 construction of their nests. 



The material thus procured would be thoroughly masticated and mixed with a natural 

 fluid or saliva, till it was of the right consistency. The wasps, on commencing their work, 

 would deposit the prepared material and then bring it into shape with their mandibles, going 

 over it again and again, pinching it till it was of a proper thinness. 



The comb in the hornet's nest is very different from that in a hive of bees (Fig. 48). The 

 bee's comb is of wax ; the hornet's of paper. The bee's comb is suspended in masses perpen- 

 dicularly — the cells, two 

 deep, being placed back to 

 back and opening sideways. 

 The hornet's comb is sus- 

 pended in tiers horizontally, 

 the topmost tier hanging by 

 a stalk to the roof, and each 

 of the others by a stalk af- 

 fixed to the centre of the 

 one above it. The cells are 

 only one deep in each layer, 

 and open below. In the bee- 

 hive some of the cells are 

 filled with honey and some 

 contain young bees. In the 

 hornet's nest all the comb is 

 brood comb, the young being 

 fed with nutriment prepared 

 by the mandibles and max- 

 illae of their attendants. 



(Vie 49^ '' ''^^ '*^" Section of Hornet's nest (original). 



The larvae of the hornet, in their early days, are held in place by a glutinous fluid, and 

 later, by pressure upon the sides of their cells. When they are about to change to pupae, they 



spin a web over the entrance of their cells and 

 close themselves in. 



Mr S. Stone, in the Entomologist's Weekly In- 

 telligencer for June 11th, 1859, (No. 141, page 84) 

 thus described the process of feeding the larvae in 

 a wasp's nest : 



" The process is an extremely interesting one. 



An attendant or nurse on retiring from a foraging 



Head of Wasp, showing nioutii excursion with a caterpillar it has found on a 



neighbouring hedge ; a piece of meat neatly rolled 



parts (original). 



