306 INSECT MISCELLANIES. 



even walk over their bodies, if they chance to be in 

 their way, with the greatest indifference. When they 

 actually die, however, they in general, though not 

 always, remove their bodies to some distance, but in 

 such cases we never saw any instance of their 

 devouring their unfortunate compatriots 



* 



GOVERNMENT OF WASPS AND BEES. 



The communities of the social wasps and of humble- 

 bees {Bomhi) are constituted in a very similar man- 

 ner to those of ants, though they differ in several 

 remarkable particulars. A colony of ants, for ex- 

 ample, particularly of the jet-ant {Formica fuliginosd) ^ 

 and others which build in trees, may continue in the 

 same spot for a number of years ; we have known a 

 hill built in a meadow by the yellow ant (F. fiava) 

 continue for five successive years, its dimensions be- 

 ing annually enlarged, and its population at the same 

 time increased. But it is seldom if ever that wasps 

 or humble-bees continue in the same spot for two 

 successive years, inasmuch as their societies do not 

 hybernate as the ants do, being always broken up at 

 the close of autumn, and all the population perishing, 

 with the exception of a few females which survive 

 the winter. Each of these survivors becomes the 

 foundress of a summer colony, like those female ants 

 who escape the scouting parties despatched from the 

 parent communities to capture them f- These fe- 

 males are six times the size and weight of one of the 

 workers, and may be seen in the early spring eagerly 

 prying into every hole and crevice of a hedge-bank 

 for the purpose of discovering a suitable place for 

 their nest. Afterwards they are rarely seen, keeping 

 themselves, like the queen of the hive-bee, entirely at 

 home ; but they are not like her idle, for they con- 

 * J. R. t See page 244. 



