2 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
There is no danger in closely observing wasps and 
their nests, if we only use a little caution and dis- 
cretion. It is better not to approach a nest too 
near on a windy day, or in a hot sun, which always 
quickens their energies, just 
As Heaven’s blest beam turns vinegar more sour.* 
And we must always look out very carefully for 
crawling wasps, too weak to fly but not at all too 
weak to sting, before taking up our post of obser- 
vation. But wasps at work are generally far too 
busy to molest. any one who does not molest them ; 
and, unlike honey-bees, they do not seem to have . 
any personal antipathies. In some respects they are 
less open to observation than bees, for they will not — 
work except in houses of their own making, and 
their first care is to surround the comb by a paper 
case, impervious to light, or at least to sight. But 
they are more easily subjected to experiment. For 
they will work in smaller swarms than bees, and even 
without a queen; and the affection which bmds them 
to their nest, or to the place where their nest was 
built, gives. us greater facilities of investigating 
their social economy. 
Wasps, to begin at the beginning, have not been 
found in a fossil state.| The Hymenoptera are well 
represented among the insects found in amber, but no 
wasps occur among them. The calcareous marl in 
the gypsum beds in different places contains remains 
* Pope’s ‘ Essay on Man,’ Rp. II, v. 148. 
+ Burmeister, ‘Manual of Entomology, translated by Shuckard,’ 
