92 Insect Architecture. 



augmented, with the design, perhaps, of more effectually 

 excluding the light. 



The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in structure 

 with that of the wasp ; but the materials are considerably 

 coarser, and the columns' to which the platforms of cells 

 are suspended are larger and stronger, the middle one being 

 twice as thick as any of the others. The hornet, also, does 

 not build underground, but in the cavities of trees, or in the 



Hornet's Nest in its first stage. 



thatch or under the eaves of barns. Eeaumur once found 

 upon a wall a hornet's nest which had not been long begun, 

 and had it transferred to the outside of his study- window ; 

 but in consequence, as he imagined, of the absence of the 

 foundress-hornet at the time it was removed, he could not get 

 the other five hornets, of which the colony consisted, either 

 to add to the building Or repair the damages which it had 

 sustained. 



M. Keaumur differs from our English naturalists, White, 



