108 PEUFECT SOCIETIES OV INSECTS. 



for the safety and subsistence of the colony. Not so 

 our female wasp ; — she is at first an insulated being 

 that has had the fortune to survive the rigours of win- 

 ter. When in the spring- she lays the foundation of her 

 future empire, she has not a single worker at her dis- 

 posal; with her own hands and teeth she often hollows 

 out a cave wherein she may lay the first foundations of 

 her paper metropolis ; she must herself build the first 

 houses, and produce from her own womb their first in- 

 habitants; wliich in their infant state she must feed and 

 educate, before they can assist her in her great design. 

 At length she receives the reward of her perseverance 

 and labour; and from being a solitary unconnected in- 

 dividual, in the autumn is enabled to rival the queen 

 of the hive in the number of her children and subjects; 

 and in the edifices which they inhabit — the number of 

 cells in a vespiary sometimes amounting to more than 

 16,000, almost all of which contain either an egg, a 

 grub, or a pupa ; and each cell serving for three gene- 

 rations in a year; which, after making every allowance 

 for failures and other casualties, will give a population 

 of at least 30,000. Even at this time, when she has so 

 numerous an army of coadjutors, the industry of this 

 creature does not cease, but she continues to set an 

 example of diligence to the rest of the community. If 

 by any accident, before the other females are hatched, 

 the queen mother perishes, the neuters cease their la- 

 bours, lose their instincts, and die. 



The number of females in a populous vespiary is con- 

 siderable, amounting to several hundred ; they emerge 

 from the pupa about the latter end of August, at the 

 game time with the males, and fly in September and 



