3/4 THE INSECT WORLD. 



\ 



the interior^ drawn from memory by Reaumur.* The cakes forming 

 the combs are composed of hexagonal cells, which are always used 

 as cradles, never as storehouses. They open below. The exterior 

 envelope of the nest is made with leaves of a sort of greyish, very 

 gummy paper, which is applied layer by layer. Reaumur has given 

 a very detailed account of the way in which these insects construct 

 their nests.t They collect fibres of wood — which are their raw 

 material — make them into a sort of coarse lint, which they reduce to 

 balls, and carry between their legs to the nest. These balls are next 

 stuck on to the work already begun. Then the insect stretches them 

 out, flattens them, and draws them into thin layers, as a bricklayer 

 spreads mortar with his trowel. The wasp works with extreme 

 quickness, always backwards, so that it may have incessantly before 

 its eyes the work it has done : the movement of its mandibles is even 

 quicker than that of its legs. 



Towards the end of summer the nest may contain 3,000 workers, 

 and many females, who live together in perfect harmony. The 

 number of males exceeds that of the females. A female weighs, 

 by herself, as much as three males or six workers. With the 

 exception of those which are occupied in building and in taking care 

 of the eggs, all wasps go out hunting during the day. They are 

 carnivorous, and may be seen attacking other insects, which they 

 tear to pieces after having killed, so as to carry the bits to their 

 nests, where thousands of mouths are clamouring for their food. 

 The wasp pays great attention to the vines. It penetrates also into 

 the interior of our houses, and infests the butchers' shops ; but this 

 the butchers do not much mind, for the wasp drives away the flies 

 which would lay their eggs on the meat and thus contribute to its 

 corruption. 



As the winter approaches, the wasps go out less and less, and 

 very soon cease to do so at all. The greater number then die, 

 huddled up in their nest. A few females only, as we have said, get 

 through the cold season. They sleep with their wings and legs 

 folded up, which gives them the appearance of chrysalides. They 

 can nevertheless sting in this state, as M. Guerin-Meneville found out 

 to his cost. The spring wakes them up, and they then found new 

 colonies. '* It is at this season," says M. Maurice Girard, in his 

 book on the "Metamorphoses of Insects," "that, with a little trouble, 

 it would be easy to diminish in a very perceptible degree the number 

 of wasps, which are, later, so destructive to the fruit, by catching in 



* ♦' Memoires," tome vi., planche 14, p. 167. + Ibid.^ tome vi., p. 177. 



