i8o ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



limits necessary to admit of free locomotion in and out. 

 The materials removed in excavation go to form the 

 cells, and the coverings, what coverings there be. Some 

 of the nests are of great size, even three feet long, 

 and wonderfully fragile, due to the choice of rotten 

 wood for the manufacture ; whereas other wasps scrape 

 their vegetable fibres from moist living sources, and 

 make a firm and tenacious structure. The hornet's 

 paper is very friable, and excessively yellowish or 

 russet-coloured, widely different from the silvery-gray 

 composition for instance of Vespa Norwegica. In 

 a sense the hornet is more indefatigable than 

 the wasp. At night the wasp retires within doors 

 for sleep, but if the moon be up, the hornet steadily 

 pursues her tasks ; even when the moon deserts 

 her, she is prone to do night-work. 



Leaving Vespa we pass to the Polistes, a group of 

 wasps with elongated bodies and the first segment of 

 their abdomen* drawn out into a long pedicle. This 

 genus is essentially exotic, though it occurs sparingly 

 in England. Their system of nidification, while in- 

 ferior to Vespa, far exceeds that of the latter in 

 diversity of plan. The nests differ in shape, and are 

 very variable as much for size as for mode of attach- 

 ment, but the combs are always destitute of any 

 covering envelope ; the young, however, are perfectly 

 safe inside. The position of the nests is not purely 

 horizontal, but oblique* or vertical, so that they are 

 adapted to casting off the rain. If, on the contrary, 

 the cells faced upwards they would fill with water ; 

 were they directed downwards the water must lie on 

 their bases as on a flat roof, and in course of time 



