86 



A paper by Mr. S. Stone was read, entitled 



Facts connected with the History of a Wasps Nest ; with Observations on Ripiphorus 



paradoxus. 



In this paper Mr. Stone shows that having taken a nest of Vespa vulgaris, and 

 having destroyed the entire community, he placed it in an apartment near to a com- 

 munity of the same species, which he had previously obtained; that members of the 

 latter community at once proceeded to feed the grubs in the stranger-nest, and to 

 construct a covering, which they completed in about a week. At the end of three 

 weeks Mr. Stone found, to his surprise, that the cells were occupied with eggs and 

 pupae in every stage of growth; and as by that time all the eggs and pupae in the 

 nest, when fir&t taken, must have been either full grown and spun up, or must have 

 become perfect wasps, it was clear that all those observed in the cells must have been 

 deposited subsequently to the nest, having been taken. 



As none of the wasps driven out of the nest when this excommunication took 

 place were queens, all being of the ordinary size of workers, Mr. Stone concludes that 

 the eggs were those of workers, and as the whole brood which were subsequently 

 developed were workers, it appeared that the results went partly to confirm Dr. 

 Ormerod's observations, published in the ' Zonlogist,' last August, namely, that 

 workers deposit eggs which produce workers ; Dr. Ormerod, however, obtained males 

 as well as workers from a nest which was deprived of its queen. The latter writer 

 Laving removed a nest from a shrub, found that three or four straggling workers recon- 

 structed the nest, and both eggs and grubs were found in it ; this nest was also 

 removed, and a third was constructed by a few workers and eggs deposited in 

 the cells ; not one wasp being observed or found in the nest. Mr. Stone also found 

 numbers of Ripiphorus paradoxus, a beetle parasitic in nests of Vespa vulgaris; the 

 discovery was too late in the season for Mr. Stone to observe in what manner 

 the young grub of the beetle obtained its nourishment; one fact was, however, 

 noticed, — that Ripiphorus is covered in the cell of the wasp, in the same way as the 

 pupa of the latter insect, by a silken convex cap. 



Mr. Smith observed that doubtless every entomologist was acquainted with the 

 details of Professor Siebold's work on ' A True Parthenogenesis,' in which the won- 

 derful but simple means were detailed whereby the eggs of the queen bee were ren- 

 dered capable of producing fertile females and workers ; and, having read Dr. 

 Ormerod's highly interesting paper on the Vespidae (Zool, 6641), in which the author 

 apparently proves that worker wasps can and do deposit eggs which develope workers 

 and also males, and having heard in Mr. Stone's paper a strong corroborative case 

 described, he naturally was led to ask the question, — Is the wasp, then, differently 

 organized to the honey-bee .'' This question lie was not in a position to answer. 



It did appear, as a thing proved, that worker wasps, without a possibility of copu- 

 lation, were capable of depositing eggs, and that those eggs developed both workers 

 and males. That no copulation could have taken place was proved by ihe fact that 

 not a single male was developed until six weeks later in the season. Another 

 question forced itself upon his mind, as to whether parthenogenesis, as detailed by 

 Siebokl in reference to impregnation, applied equally to the social Vespidte as to the 

 social honey-bee ; in fact, was it a general law applying to all social hymenopterous 

 insects ? The details before the Meeting appeared to give an answer in the negative. 



