348 



LETTER XVIII. 



SOCIETIES OF INSECTS continued. 

 PERFECT SOCIETIES continued. (WASPS AND HUMBLE-BEES.) 



I SHALL now call your attention to such parts of the history of two 

 other descriptions of social insects, wasps, namely, and humble-bees, as have 

 not been related to you in my letters on the affection of insects for their 

 young, and on their habitations. What I have to communicate, though 

 not devoid of interest, is not to be compared with the preceding account of 

 the ants, nor with that which will follow of the hive-bee. This, however, 

 may arise more from the deficiency of observations than the barrenness of 

 the subject. 



The first of these animals, wasps (Vespa) with whose proceedings I 

 shall begin we are apt to regard in a very unfavourable light. They are 

 the most impertinent of intruders. If a door or window be open at the 

 season of the year in which they appear, they are sure to enter. When 

 they visit us, they stand upon no ceremony, but make free with everything 

 that they can come at. Sugar, meat, fruit, wine, are equally to their taste ; 

 and if we attempt to drive them away, and are not very cautious, they will 

 often make us sensible that they are not to be provoked with impunity. 

 Compared with the bees, they may be considered as a horde of thieves and 

 brigands ; and the latter as peaceful, honest, and industrious subjects, whose 

 persons are attacked and property plundered by them. Yet with all this 

 love of pillage and other bad propensities, they are not altogether dis- 

 agreeable or unamiable ; they are brisk and lively ; they do not usually 

 attack unprovoked ; and their object in plundering us is not purely selfish, 

 but is principally to provide for the support of the young brood of their 

 colonies. 



The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other social Hymenoptera, 

 consist of females, males, and workers. The females may be considered as 

 of two sorts : first, the females by way of eminence, much larger than any 

 other individuals of the community, equalling six of the workers (from 

 which in other respects they do not materially differ) in weight, and laying 

 both male and female eggs. Then the small females, not bigger than the 

 workers, and laying only male eggs. This last description of females, which 

 are found also both amongst the humble-bees, and hive-bees, were first 

 observed amongst the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of Huber's. 1 The 

 large females are produced later than the workers, and make their appear- 

 ance in the following spring ; and whoever destroys one of them at that 

 time destroys an entire colony of which she would be the founder. They 



1 Huber, Nowo. Observ. ii. 443. 



