212 NATURAL HISTORY OF WASPS. 
two or three inches. But this is altogether a very 
large nest, larger than any I have seen elsewhere. 
The embryo hornets’ nest is somewhat different 
from that of the other species, it is shorter and 
clumsier, and my specimen, taken from the roof of a 
stable, wants an outer cap. 
The nest of V. vulgaris (Plate VIII.) is very similar 
to the hornets’ nest, both in the nature of the mate- 
rials employed and the mode of its construction. 
But there is no difficulty in distinguishing the 
miniature from the coarse work of the larger insect. 
The fragments of wood are smaller, and the colour 
much more varied; and the whole structure affects 
rather a globular than an oval form. The cells of 
which the outer case is made are small, short, and 
irregular, quite unlike the long tunnels which the 
hornet builds. Their vaulting is made of shelly 
patches, the lines in which are disposed in concentric 
curves of a short radius, with the concavity mostly 
directed downwards, arching across the open ends of 
the vaults. These nests are friable to the last degree, 
and cannot bear any handling. There is nothing in 
wasp architecture more beautifully symmetrical than 
a large comb of V. vulgaris, nor more prettily varied 
than the case of the nest. And I am sorry to add 
that there is nothing of this kind more perishable. 
The hornet prefers to build in a roof, or in the 
hollow of a rotten tree or post, above- or, sometimes, 
under-ground; V. vulgaris has a more varied taste, 
for, though she is an underground wasp by prefe- 
rence, yet she will build in roofs, and in the most 
out-of-the-way places, among which a dovecote, a 
