INSECTS, 125 



consequently, different in modes of life from those which are 

 indigenous here. This view is corroborated by the discovery 

 made by Colonel Sykes, of a species* living in India, which 

 hoards up in its cell the seeds of grass, and takes the pre- 

 caution of bringing them up to the surface to dry, when wetted 

 by the heavy rains peculiar to the country. 



We pass on to a tribe of Hymenopterous insects with which 

 the generality of observers have but little sympathy the 

 Wasps. Their community consists of males, females, and 

 neuters. At the commencement of spiing, an impregnated 

 female, w.ho has survived the winter, commences the foundation 

 of a colony, which, ere the end of summer, may contain twenty 

 or thirty thousand individuals. The neuters are soon brought 

 forth, and set themselves sedulously to their task of forming 

 cells, collecting food, and attending to the young brood. It 

 is while they are engaged in these labours that we find them 

 so intrusive and troublesome. 



The males and females are produced only towards autumn ; 

 the males and neuters die as the season advances, and each 

 of the widowed females who survives conies forth in spring 

 an isolated being, to establish another city not less populous 

 than that which has perished. The singular treatment the 

 young grubs receive appears to us, at first sight, unnatural and 

 even revolting. On the approach of cold weather, they are 

 dragged from their nests, and rigorously put to death by the 

 old Wasps, who, until then, had laboured so assiduously for 

 their support and protection. 



It is a singular fact, that the nests of these insects are 

 made of a material which we are apt to regard as a modern 

 invention paper. With their strong mandibles they cut or 

 tear off portions of woody fibre, reduce it to a pulp, and, of 

 the papier mache thus fabricated, the cells, and often the 

 covering of their habitations, are formed. The exterior of 

 the tree-nests of some of the foreign species is perfectly 

 white, smooth, and compact, resembling in appearance the 

 finest pasteboard. The nest of our common Wasp is less 

 attractive; but when it has been carefully dug out of the 

 earth, and the interior laid open to view, with its successive 

 layers of symmetrical cells skilfully supported upon ranges of 

 suitable pillars, the regularity and perfection it displays cannot 



* Aita provident. Trans. Entomological Society, vol. i. page 103. 



