348 Mr. A. Murray on the History 



was a very large one, containing six or seven large combs 

 more than a foot in diameter. It was built in the ground, 

 partly in a rough stone drain, and unusually deep and distant 

 from the opening, being more than a yard from it, and fully a 

 foot beneath the surface. The soil was very hard, so much so 

 that it took a strong labourer nearly half an hour's work to 

 get at it. 



When the nest was raised out of its hole, after asphyxiating 

 its inhabitants, a fully formed male and female UJdpij^horvs 

 were found, one lying dead among wasps at the bottom of the 

 nest, and the other gone head foremost into one of the great 

 cells (queens' cells) at the bottom. 



No other Rh'piphori were found by MissE. Ormerod in the 

 lower or last-made tiers of comb — that is, in those composed of 

 large cells (for male and female larvas) ; all except the lowest 

 two tiers of comb were composed of small or worker cells. She 

 found no larvas, but pupa^ in every stage, from that almost re- 

 sembling the larva in whiteness and form to the perfect insect, 

 able, when the cap or seal of the cell was removed, to run out 

 with such speed and dash down a neighbouring cell, that she 

 could scarcely distinguish what it was. She mentions inciden- 

 tally the stages she remarked in development were white, white 

 with the black showing on the thorax, and coloured before the 

 wings had developed. She noticed, too, that, in coming out, 

 the pupa3 did not cut the lid or cap nicely round, as the 

 wasps do, but thrust their heads roughly through the middle 

 of it, apparently only getting out by forcing their way slowly 

 through the torn hole ; but she did not see any specimen com- 

 plete the operation of freeing itself. 



All the specimens in the nest in question were of the com- 

 mon size ; but two or three varied from the others in colom*, as 

 in having the abdomen black (or black with light rings) in- 

 stead of yellow. From another nest, however, she took one 

 of the large size mentioned by Prof. Westwood, in his 

 ' Introduction to Entomology,' vol. i. p. 294, on Mr. Hope's 

 authority, as being found only in the cells of the female wasps; 

 the comb she took it from was full of nearly full-grown females 

 of Vespa vulgaris. 



Having picked the combs of the large nest pretty clean, 

 Miss E. Ormerod sent it on to me, kindly leaving a portion 

 of the cells unopened in all the combs, for me to have an 

 oj)portunity of verifying her observations for myself. I found 

 about fifty specimens of llhipijyhorus ready to come out, alive, 

 not quite so active as described ; but that was, no doubt, due 

 to their not having reached their full term. I also found 

 about a dozen pupa? less advanced. 1 did not distinguish any 



