HYMENOPTERA — VESPIDE. 951 
wind, and to be out of the reach of monkeys. It is in the shape of a 
truncated cone, and is composed of a very fine substance, exactly like 
card-board. The combs, which increase in number with the increasing 
population (the nest sometimes attaining a very large size), are cir- 
cular, but convex on the under side, with a central aperture for the 
ingress and egress of the inhabitants; they are attached to the gene- 
ral envelope through their entire circumference ; the bottom layer, so 
long as it serves as the bottom of the nest, is smooth; but when a 
fresh layer of cells is required, these are built upon the under side of 
this bottom, with their open ends directed downwards, and a fresh 
bottom is then added, the central orifice serving to allow a passage 
through the several layers of combs. 
Réaumur has described and figured numerous varieties of these 
card nests in the 6th volume of his J/émoitres. [have seen some 
other varieties, which remain undescribed in the national museums of 
London, Paris *, and Berlin. One of these is of a large size, and has 
the outer envelope of the nest covered with small conical promi- 
nences. Another nest, lately received by the Zoological Society of 
London from Ceylon, is not less than six feet in length, and has been 
built inside an immense palm leaf. 
A species of these insects, inhabiting New Spain and the West 
Indian Islands, has received the name of Vespa vegetans, from having 
been frequently observed to be infested by a parasitic plant, resem- 
bling a coral branch (probably a species of Clavaria), which arises 
from the segments of the abdomen, or other parts of the body. It is 
ordinarily upon dead specimens that this occurs; but the plant has 
been observed to germinate in the larve. Indeed, in Der Natur- 
forscher (No.4. tab. 4.), the wasps themselves are represented as fly- 
ing around a tree, with the vegetating matter growing out of the ab- 
domen. (See Hist. of Ins., Fam. Library, vol. ii. p. 296. ; Trans. Ent. 
Soe. vol. i. p. lxvi.; Annales Sci. Nat. July 1829, in which a species 
of Spheria was observed to have infested an entire nest of wasps in 
Guadaloupe.) Various absurd speculations have been made upon the 
nature and growth of this plant, which is, however, evidently analo- 
gous to the plant (Botrytis Bassiana) which produces the fatal disease 
in silkworms termed muscardine. 
2 
* One specimen in the Jardin des Plantes, about eight inches in diameter, appears 
to be covered with a thick layer of pottery, rather than papyritious matter, as 
though formed of earth, 
