Linncean Society. 285 



Cancer diteresis brachyurus, thorace Isevi linea transversa insculjjto 

 marginibus serratis, chelis laevibus. 



Cancer brachyurus subhirsutus, manibus totis ciliatis. 



Cancer ex squillarum prosapia 4 distinctse ; nondum posui dilFe- 

 rentias et numero plura, prseter ultima, Te inventore, alleganda. 

 Literae excrescerent in infinitum, si simul et semel omnia responso 

 exponerem, nunc aliis negotiis implicitus reserve reliqua proximse 

 epistolse. 

 Scripsi multa addenda vol. 1. Syst. nat, idq quotidie ; absolvi dimi- 

 dium tomum. Si Tuus frater edat, certus sum quod hoc prodeat 

 optimis typis, qui Anglis communis. Tarn multa quae quotidie 

 prodiere, post priorem editionem operis, et quae allegavi multum 

 laboris expostularunt. Si vixero absolvam opus in autumnum. 

 Quid mihi oflPerat in sostrum ? An poterit habere optimum cor- 

 rectorem typi? 

 Upsaliae, 1774. d. 3julii. 



Viro Reverendo Domino Joh. White, 



London. 



Blackburn. 



May 1. — The Lord Bishop of Norwich, President, in the Chair. 



John Hogg, Esq., F.L.S., exhibited a portion of a large and re- 

 markable Wasp's Nest, taken by himself last autumn. The portion 

 exhibited formed about one-third of the entire nest, which was built 

 in the inside of the roof of one of the wings of Mr. Hogg's house at 

 Norton in the county of Durham, a part being fixed under the roof, 

 and the remainder to the side wall immediately below it. The hole 

 under the slates by which the wasps went in and out was originally 

 made by sparrows ; and at this part, and among another portion of 

 the wasp's nest, appeared the remains of the old bird's nest, con- 

 sisting chiefly of straw with a few feathers. The entire wasp's nest 

 bore the appearance of having been the fabric of several years, some 

 of it being apparently older and in inferior preservation to the rest, 

 as well as somewhat blackened. Externally the nest is beautifully 

 parti- coloured, the layers of the various substances used in the con- 

 struction presenting circular or curved lines or rings, which are 

 brown, buff, yellow, grey, dark grey, nearly black, &c. ; altogether 

 exhibiting a very elegant shell-like structure, which Mr. Hogg has 

 not observed in any other British wasp's nest. These layers he re- 

 gards as indicative of the mode in which the wasps carried on their 

 labours ; one wasp, or set of wasps, having made use of the same 

 substance (such as wood, lichen, the bark of a tree, &c.), collected 

 from the same place, and of the same colour, to form one circular 

 layer or ring ; and then having been succeeded by another wasp, or 

 set of wasps, using other substances taken from another spot, and of 

 a different colour ; and so on. 



Mr. Hogg states that he has recently seen in the British Museum 

 a very similar nest sent from China by Mr. Say ; but the species of 

 the Chinese wasp, or even its genus, is not stated. He had at first 

 hoped that his nest might have proved the work of the new wasp 



