THE WASl'. oW 



wasp resemble each other very strongly, yet, in examining their 

 manner and their duration, they differ very widely : the bee 

 labours to lay up honey, and lives to enjoy the fruits of its in- 

 dustry : the wasp appears equally assiduous : but only works 

 for posterity, as the habitation is scarcely completed when the 

 inhabitant dies. 



The wasp is well known to be a winged insect with a sting. 

 To be longer in proportion to its bulk than the bee, to be 

 marked with bright yellow circles round its body, and to be the 

 most swift and active insect of all the fly kind. On each side 

 of the mouth this animal is furnished with a long tooth, notched 

 like a saw, and with these it is enabled to cut any substance, 

 not omitting meat itself, and to carry it to its nest. Wasps live, 

 like bees, in community, and sometimes ten or twelve thousand 

 are found inhabiting a single nest. 



Of all other insects the wasp is the most fierce, voracious, 

 and most dangerous, when enraged. They are seen wherever 

 flesh is cutting up, gorging themselves with the spoil, and then 



there are two or three combs placed on one another, but not united. 

 These combs vary in size : they consist of a number of oblong or oval cells, 

 or coccoons of a silky substance, fastened togetlier, and spun by the larvae 

 when they are about to undergo their first change ; for the carding bees 

 do not form waxen cells for their young. The cells are of three dimen- 

 sions, answering to the three sexes. The void spaces between the cells are 

 filled with masses of brown paste, made of gross wax, or pollen much 

 wrought, and huney. Besides the masses they attach to every comb, par- 

 ticularly tlie uppermost, three or four cells of tlie same coarse wax, in the 

 shape of goblets, open at the top, wliich they fill with a li.iuid and very 

 sweet honey. 



The first step towards finisliing a nest is to make a mass of the brown 

 paste, and one of these honey-pots. The masses of paste are intended for 

 the food of the larva", and in them the eggs are deposited. These vary in 

 number, from three to thirty being to be found in one mass, but not all in 

 tlie same cavity. The larva; are similar to those of the hive-bee, but their 

 sides are marked by irregular transverse black spots. After they are hatcJied 

 they separate from each other, eating the paste that surrounds them. The 

 honey.pots may be intended to supply lioney for the occasional moistening 

 of the paste in making repairs, &c. The pupa in each cell is placed with 

 its head downwards, and makes its way out at the bottom of its coecoon. 



The nests seldom contain more than fifty or sixty inhabitants ; and in this 

 community, both the females and males act in concert with the neuters in 

 fitting up and repairing their habitations. Tlie nests of the carding bees 

 are exposed to various depredators ; but field-raic« and polecats are their 

 most formidable enemies. 



IV. 2 .', 



