138 Mr. F. Smith on the Construction of 
compelling power, here are no adjoining circular combs, forcing 
the production of this particular hexagonal-shaped comb ; the 
comb of this wasp consists of a single layer attached to trunks or 
branches of trees, &c., without any exterior envelope. I cannot, 
when I see such beautiful examples of the architecture of wasps, 
come to any other conclusion, than that, in instances such as the 
one I have just mentioned, it was the intention of the wasps to 
build hexagonal-shaped combs, and also their intention that those 
combs should consist entirely of hexagonal-shaped cells. 
I direct your attention to a small nest of Polistes tepidus ; this 
nest appears to illustrate, and to establish as a fact, a supposition 
that has frequently occurred to me, namely, that the development 
of the larve of Hymenoptera to the perfect condition must be a 
process much more rapidly carried on in tropical countries than 
in temperate ones, and that this rapidity of development ne- 
cessitates the more rapid construction of those cells in which the 
first eggs are deposited. The nest before you, I think, is an 
exemplification of this idea: five cells are completed, each having 
served as the nursery of a wasp; twelve additional cells are com- 
menced, and are in different stages of progress. Now I would 
call your attention to one fact, that the circumference of the un- 
finished cell is not carried up equally, or to the same height on all 
sides; you will observe that the two planes of each hexagonal 
cell that attach the unfinished cells to the finished ones are elevated 
obliquely considerably above the other planes; when any cell is 
carried up to the height required, all the planes have an equal 
elevation ; therefore, it is clearly the case that the two inner planes 
that attached the unfinished cells to the finished ones must be first 
completed, leaving the two outer planes to be finished afterwards. 
This mode of construction is never, so far as my observation 
enables me to judge, to be observed in combs built. by a populous 
community ; in such cases, all the sides of the cells are carried up 
simultaneously. 
I also exhibit a comb of the common wasp, Vespa vulgaris 
(No. 8), it isexceedingly interesting from the fact of its consisting 
of cells of different sizes; about three-fourths of the comb are 
occupied by cells of workers ; at this stage of formation it became 
necessary to construct cells of a larger diameter adapted for 
females ; this could not have been effected at once without a total 
disarrangement of their usual beautiful uniformity, but it could be 
done by degrees; thus we find the bases of about four rows of 
cells elongated, the parallel planes of the hexagons being also 
elongated, and thus by degrees the enlargement of the cells is 
