SOME INSECT COMMUNITIES 69 



friendly in their manners, and permit one to 

 watch them closely. 



Early in the spring, the queen Wasp, who 

 has passed the winter in some sheltered nook in 

 a state of torpor, awakens and begins to seek a 

 suitable site for the foundation of her nest. If 

 she is a Wood Wasp, she will probably select 

 the bough of a tree ; if she is a Common Wasp 

 (Vespa vulgaris) she will seek out a cavity in the 

 ground. Let us try to follow the latter species, 

 for it is the Wasp one most frequently meets 

 with. Having found a suitable cavity, the queen 

 Wasp flies off and begins assiduously to collect 

 materials for the construction of the nest, and 

 soon she has laid a foundation of wood-scrapings 

 and reared a kind of foot-stalk to support the 

 first two or three layers of cells. These cells 

 she protects by a waterproof, papery envelope, 

 which she manufactures from well-masticated, 

 woody fibres worked into a paste with a viscid 

 secretion from her salivary glands. In each of 

 the first set of cells she places an egg, and then 

 proceeds to build more cells, which in turn also 

 each receive an egg. Directly the young larvae 

 hatch out they have to be fed, and as they grow 

 the walls of the cells have to be raised so that 

 they shall not be exposed to harm. When the 

 larvae are full fed and grown, they shut them- 

 selves in the cells with a silken lid, and change 

 to pupae. All this time the queen-mother Wasp 

 has had to work very hard indeed, bringing in 

 food supplies for her hungry babies, increasing 

 the depth of their cells to keep pace with their 

 growth, adding to the number of cells, and 



