Prof. R. L. Edgeworth on Irish Vespidse. 469 



inches deep and as much broad, with some dry moss under 

 them. Let a piece of stick be fixed over the cells, to which the 

 wasps may attach their nest. Place a piece of board over the 

 cells, and bore a slanting hole in the ground for the wasps to go 

 in and out ; and, last of all, empty the tumbler of wasps into 

 the cells. It seems to be immaterial whether the queen be pre- 

 sent or not. Some sugar should be placed near, that they may 

 feed themselves easily during the first twenty-four hours. Next 

 morning they invariably commence to repair the injuries which 

 the nest has sustained. Their first care is to fasten their combs 

 by a strong pillar to the transverse stick, which, I mentioned 

 before, should be placed contiguous to the cells. Without 

 something to which they may attach their nest, they will not 

 build ; because if it cannot be suspended, it must inevitably be 

 destroyed by the damp which exudes from the surrounding 

 ground. Few animals are so cleanly in their internal oeconomy 

 as wasps, and their first care after transplantation is to clean 

 their nest from any dirt, &c., which may have fallen into it. 

 This duty is in a measure consigned to the males. These males 

 may constantly be seen flying out of the nest, carrying away dead 

 grubs ; and often when these are too large to be carried, I have 

 seen the insect drag his load along the grass after him. 



It has often been stated that wasps keep a sentinel. I am 

 inclined to think that V. vulgaris does not. V. vulgaris is very 

 particular, at least in a flourishing nest, that the entrance should 

 be quite clear of weeds, straws, and grass, that the activity of 

 commerce may not be interrupted; and there is often a worker 

 employed in cutting down these blades of grass, who might pos- 

 sibly be mistaken for a sentinel. At one time I had nine nests, 

 which I had removed to within a few yards of the house for con- 

 venience of observation, and in none of these could I say that 

 there was a sentinel continually on duty. Each wasp takes only 

 ten minutes, or at most a quarter of an hour, in collecting wood 

 or food. This is easily proved by stopping the entrance of the 

 hole, and by killing all the wasps which return, and in about 

 twenty minutes all will have returned except a few stragglers. 

 Each wasp, on an average, appears to perform two journeys in an 

 hour. 



There is a popular story originated by Reaumur, and sanctioned 

 by Messrs. Kirby and Spence, and others, that at the first cold 

 of winter wasps lose all the love for their young for which they 

 were once so celebrated, and that, dragging their unofiending 

 victims from their cells, they scatter their immolated bodies 

 round the entrance of their nest. This statement appears to me 

 to be entirely wrong. Possibly the grubs, in some rare cases, 

 may have been killed by an early frost, and from the number of 



