82 OUR HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



are on the wing, and dashing rapidly about, it is not so 

 easy to see this. Now the hornet, the scientific name 

 for which is Vespa crabro, i.e.. reversing the order of 

 the words, the "hornet wasp," is in shape exactly like 

 an overgrown wasp, so that its form must be familiar 

 to every one. We have only to imagine the yellow of 

 the wasp's body to be deepened in tone, the black to be 

 replaced by brown, and the whole insect to be consider- 

 ably magnified, and the wasp becomes a hornet. If this 

 be borne in mind, there should be no difficulty whatever 

 in recognising a hornet, for there is no other British 

 insect to which the description will apply. Since the 

 Sirex is not unfrequently found in houses, as well as the 

 hornet, it is all the more necessary to be able to distin- 

 guish the harmless insect from the dangerous one. The 

 hornet's wings, like those of a wasp, are covered with a 

 profusion of tiny hairs, which, however, are so small as 

 to be quite invisible without the aid of a microscope. 



The hornet constructs its nest of a material prepared 

 similarly to that used by the rest of the genus, but it 

 is of a coarser texture, and inclines to a yellowish 

 brown, instead of the delicate grey of the smaller species. 

 As an instance of the rapidity with which these insects 

 work, the following particulars, given by Mr. R. S. Stan- 

 den, concerning a hornet's nest found, in the summer of 

 1 88 1, in a shed in Norfolk, may be quoted. It was 

 constructed in a thin shell of mortar about the size of 

 a lemon, and open at one end. It was commenced on 

 June 24, and the writer goes on to say, "Although 

 when I first observed her (the queen hornet) the shell 

 was perfectly empty, by the morning of the 28th less 

 than five days she had constructed twenty-six cells ; 

 two were empty, seventeen contained eggs, five had 

 good-sized larvae, and the remaining two were already 



