ARCHITECTURE. 213 
pump, and a sugar-loaf, are included. Professor 
Edgeworth,* who has made this species his particular 
study, finds that ninety per cent. of its nests are 
built im close proximity to those of the Bombus ter- 
restris or agrestis. The neighbours are said to live 
on excellent terms. For whose benefit is the relation 
maintained? Does the wasp court the society ot 
the bee, or the bee seek in the neighbourhood of the 
wasps, protection from her enemy the field-mouse ?f 
A somewhat similar relation is said to exist between 
the mocking birds and the pasteboard wasps; the 
birds building over the wasps’ nests to secure their 
young from the attacks of the monkeys. 
V. germanica (Plate [X.) makes her nest either in 
the ground or hanging from a rafter. Underground, 
of course she adapts her work to the necessities 
which projecting roots or stones involve; but, when 
she is at liberty to build in any direction the nest 
takes the form of a sphere flattened at the poles. 
The materials employed are vegetable fibres, which 
are felted together into a dull grey texture, wanting 
all the elegance of colour and arrangement of the 
nest of V. vulgaris. The same shelly patches indeed 
are to be seen, but in the mode of their arrangement 
they bear no constant relation to the whole work. 
They seem to be laid on anyhow, merely to cover 
space ; and instead of springing in arches they lie 
nearly flat. Many of the patches are complete circles. 
These are all made from without inwards, in concen- 
* Notes on Irish Vespide, ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural His- 
tory, Vol. XIII, p. 466. June, 1864. 
+ Darwin ‘On the Origin of Species.’ p. 74. 
