382 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



pose of hybernation, and those of the latter that 

 survive till the following spring found other families, 

 each individual commencing its own nest, depositing 

 its eggs, and rearing its young itself. In the early 

 part of the season, workers only are produced in the 

 new colonies, and their first duties are the preparation 

 of the cells they have quitted for the reception of other 

 eggs, the enlargement of the nests then follows and is 

 continued throughout the summer months. The nests 

 of the few species we have found here are essentially 

 wooden structures, the building material is collected 

 by the insects in very fine particles and, with the addi- 

 tion of a glutinous secretion from their mouths, worked- 

 up into a pulp which, when spread out in a thin layer 

 and dry, resembles a more or less coarse kind of greyish 

 or buff-coloured paper. These nests consists of hex- 

 agonal cells in single series arranged in horizontal 

 tiers, each tier suspended from the one above it by 

 strong pillars, and the whole, when complete, enclosed 

 in a general envelope of several layers. The entrance 

 to the cells is from below, so that the position of the 

 larvae in them is with the head downwards, and in the 

 nest of the common wasp the tiers are about half-an- 

 inch apart, in that of the common hornet the cells are 

 necessarily larger and the spaces between the tiers 

 wider. 



The Common Wasp ( Vespa vulgaris) nidificates 

 underground, generally selecting a hedge bank for 

 the purpose, and we have, late in the autumn, dug out 

 many of its globular nests, some nearly a foot in 

 diameter. Vespa Crabro, the Common Hornet, is the 

 largest insect, not only of the genus, but of the whole 

 order, the perfect fernale measuring an inch-and-a- 

 quarter in length, and the species is occasionally met 

 with in great numbers, particularly in the valley. It 

 builds in old hollow trees, in outhouses and barns, and 

 in one instance, which we have reason to remember, 

 we found a nest suspended from one of the laths in 



