THE WASP. 125 



longer find sufficient warmth in their nests, which 

 grow hateful to them, and they fly to seek it in 

 the corners of houses, and places that receive an 

 artificial heat. But the winter is still insupport- 

 able, and, before the new year begins, they wither 

 and die ; the working wasps first, the males soon 

 following, and many of the females suffer in the 

 general calamity. In every nest, however, one 

 or two females survive the winter, and having 

 been impregnated by the male during the preced- 

 ing season, she begins in spring to lay her eggs in 

 a little hole of her own contrivance. This bundle 

 of eggs, which is clustered together like grapes, 

 soon produces two worms, which the female takes 

 proper precaution to defend and supply, and these 

 when hatched soon give assistance to the female, 

 who is employed in hatching two more ; these 

 also gathering strength, extricate themselves out 

 of the web that enclosed them, and become like- 

 wise assistants to their mother j fifteen days after, 

 two more make their appearance : thus is the com- 

 munity every day increasing, while the female 

 lays in every cell, first a male and then a female. 

 These soon after become breeders in turn, till, 

 from a single female, ten thousand wasps are seen 

 produced before the month of June. After the 

 female has thus produced her progeny, which are 

 distributed in different districts, they assemble 

 from all parts, in the middle of summer, and pro- 

 vide for themselves the large and commodious 

 habitation which has been described above. 



Such is the history of the social wasp ; but, as 

 among bees, so also among these insects, there are 



