Social- Wasps. 95 



situation. But when it is built in the hollow of a tree there 

 is no cover at all, the insect evidently knowing that the 

 wooden wall with which the cells are surrounded, affords a suffi- 

 cient protection. In cases where a cover is made, the hornets 

 do not form only a single entrance, as is the case with the wasp, 

 but have a large number of small entrances in different parts 

 of the wall. Some of these entrances can be seen in the 

 illustration on page 93. 



Hornets are in one sense more industrious than wasps. 

 When night falls, the wasps betake themselves to their home, 

 and sleep throughout the night. But, if the moon be up, the 

 hornet is sure to work throughout the entire night, and will 

 often do so, even when no moon is visible.] 



One of the most remarkable of our native social wasps is 

 the tree-wasp (Vespa Britannica), which is not uncommon 

 in the northern, but is seldom to be met with in the southern 

 parts of the island. Instead of burrowing in the ground like 

 the common wasp (Vespa vulgaris), or in the hollows of trees 

 like the hornet (Vespa crabro), it boldly swings its nest from 

 the extremity of a branch, where it exhibits some resemblance, 

 in size and colour, to a Welsh wig hung out to dry. We 

 have seen more than one of these nests on the same tree, at 

 Catrine, in Ayrshire, and at Wemyss Bay, in Eenfrewshire. 

 The tree which the Britannic wasp prefers is the silver fir, 

 whose broad flat branch serves as a protection to the sus- 

 pended nest both from the sun and the rain. We have also 

 known a wasp's nest of this kind in a gooseberry-bush, at 

 Red-house Castle, East Lothian. The materials and structure 

 are nearly the same as those employed by the common wasp, 

 and which we have already described. (J. E.) 



[We have before us a beautiful example of a nest made by 

 this species of wasp. There are no less than three consecutive 

 coverings quite entire, while another is about three-fourths 

 completed, and a fifth is just begun. The illustration 

 exhibits a very perfect specimen ] 



A singular nest of a species of wasp is figured by Reaumur, 

 but is apparently rare in this country, as Kirby and Spence 



