EXPERIMENTAL INQUIRIES. 261 
swarms will sometimes combine together, either, 
as we have seen,* from the fellowship of a common 
misfortune, or as the result of experiments such as 
Professor Edgewortht has so ingeniously contrived. 
And this, whether the wasps be of the same or of 
different species.t 
The courage and endurance of V. britannica are 
conspicuous under these trying circumstances, while 
V. rufa is said § to be singularly wanting in energy 
under this calamity, and to make no attempt to 
repair the injury. The workers, in such case, are 
unworthy of their queen, who seems to be quite an 
Amazon among wasps. For, whenever a female of 
this species has been sent me in a box with other live 
females, V. rufa has generally contrived to murder 
and mutilate her travellmg companions. 
These experiments may be varied to any extent; 
and, by directing their labours, by means of threads 
and wires, wasps may be made to build in the most 
grotesque forms. But I need not dwell on these; 
for whoever has seen the results of Mr. Stone’s]| 
curious experiments in wasp architecture in the 
British Museum, will scarcely need any further illus- 
trations of the various shapes which their nests may ' 
be made to assume. And we may go on at once to 
the second part of this inquiry, namely, as to the 
effect of the loss of the queen on the swarm, 
* Page 203. 
+ On Irish Vespide. ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ 
3rd Series, Vol. XIII, p. 470. 
t{ Mr. Stone. Wood. ‘Homes without Hands,’ p. 361. 
§ Edgeworth, op. cit., p. 472. 
|| See also Wood. ‘Homes without Hands,’ p. 358, and Plate, 
