362 CLASS vin. 



. 



In bees we saw a monarchy with a queen at the head ; here the form of 

 government is a republic, the members of which are supported less by their 

 own industry than by rapine. Wasps are freebooters ; they are very eager 

 for the juice of fruits ; they suck the fluid that adheres to meat in 

 slaughter-houses, cut pieces off, rob bees of their honey and murder them, 

 as well as other insects, not for their own use, but to feed their larvae with 

 them. This robber-state, however numerous its citizens may be, owes its 

 origin to a single mother. She is fertilised in the autumn, and lives over 

 the winter, whilst the neuters and males die, and in the spring commences 

 the work alone. After a while she is assisted by sexless wasps which are 

 her first-born children. In autumn males an cT females are born. At that 

 time some hundreds of the last are often found in a single nest, dwelling 

 in uninterrupted peace, whilst amongst bees only two or three females 

 are able to be of one mind together, for a short time. The working wasps 

 are smaller than the rest ; they all die from the cold of winter. 



Comp. REAUMUR, Mem. s. 1. Ins. vi. Mem. vi. vii ; BONNET, Contempla- 

 tion de la Nature, XI. partie, chaps. 23 25 ; (Euvres d'llist. Nat. et de 

 Philos. Tom. ix. 8vo, pp. 99 100; KIBBY and SPENCE, Introd. to Ento- 

 mol. ii. pp, 107 112. 



Polistes LATR. Clypeus produced anteriorly into a sharp tooth. 

 Abdomen in some adhering to the thorax by a long petiole. 



Sp. Vespa nididans FABB., Epipone chartaria LATB., Hist. not. des Crust, et 

 des Ins. xni. Tab. 102, f. 6 ; GUEBIN, Iconogr. Ins. PI. 72, fig. 7. This 

 South- American species makes very large nests, as though of pasteboard, 

 hung to a branch of a tree, like long sacks with a conical lower end, with 

 an opening in the middle. The cells are attached to different transverse 

 partitions, which are perforated in the middle ; this is the Guepe cartonniere 

 of REAUMUB, Ins. vi. Mem. vn. p. 224, &c. PL 20 24, &c. To this division 

 also belongs the honey-gathering wasp of the Brazils, named Lecheguana ; 

 see LATBEILLE, Mem. du Mitseum, XL pp. 313 320, and another species 

 which A. WHITE names Myropetra scutellaris, whose nest differs from that 

 of Vespa nidulans by the conical knobs with which it is beset externally. 

 Ann. of not. Hist. vn. 1841, pp. 315 322. 



To the division Polistes belong some European wasps whose nest has no 

 common covering, the cells lying bare. SWAMMEBDAM, Bijbel der Nat. 

 Tab. -26, fig. 15 ; KOESEL, Ins. n. Bomb, et Vesp. Tab. vn. 



Vespa LATR. Clypeus truncated anteriorly, emarginate. 



Sp. Vespa crabro L., EEAUMUB, Ins. vi. PI. xvin. 1 Vespa vulgaris L., 

 REAUM. ibid. PI. xiv. figs, i 7, PANZEB, Deutschl. Ins., Heft 49, Tab. 

 19, &c. 



1 That this insect, the largest and .most voracious wasp of Europe, may be to some 

 extent tamed, and then is not to be feared, appears from the observations of P. W. J. 

 MUELLEB ; see his amusingly written paper in GEBMAB und LINCKEN, Magazin 

 der Entomologie, in. 1818, s. 56 68. 



