Prof. R. L. Edgeworth on Irish Vespidse. 471 



and found they always selected the bark of larch or fir. The 

 workers collect in about twelve minutes little bundles of these 

 ligneous fibres, which seem frequently to be mingled with 

 structures of a fungoid nature, and then, returning to the nest 

 in about three minutes, roll out the little ball with their hind 

 legs, and, moistening it with a viscid secretion, spread it into 

 paper. Each wasp seems to have no definite place for working, 

 but commences where his predecessor ceased. When making 

 paper, they are often so occupied that they seem scarcely dis- 

 turbed by being touched. In some nests, from which I had re- 

 moved the outer covering, I found that a whole shell for a nest 

 six inches in diameter was built in two days. The nest of V. 

 vulgaris in its natural state is extremely beautiful. It is not 

 composed of envelopes of paper, but of small pieces of brittle 

 substance, placed over each other, as Reaumur says, like inverted 

 cockle-shells. This is obviously a provision against damp, to 

 which, from the deep-seated situation of these nests, they are 

 peculiarly exposed, and is not to be found in the covering of V. 

 Tufa, which builds superficially in a drier situation. When bur- 

 rowing, if stones too large to be rolled or carried out of the nest 

 are met with, they are ingeniously excavated under. Having 

 dropped large stones into several nests, I invariably found this 

 to be the case. 



Food. — The food of V. vulgaris appears to be very various ; 

 indeed this insect seems to be able to eat almost anything. In 

 the early months of the year, whilst they are still rapacious, 

 their diet seems to be nearly exclusively animal ; but in the later 

 months a vegetable fare seems more grateful to their effeminated 

 natures. They are said to be very fond of bees. They devour 

 raw meat, fish, sweet things of every sort, flies, butterflies, 

 spiders; and they have been observed even to kill dragon-flies. 

 I have also several times seen them carry off the grubs from an 

 ants' nest which had been disturbed. 



Towards the autumn I have observed a most remarkable phe- 

 nomenon, that early in the morning our groves — especially 

 beech, fir, larch, and sycamore — actually swarm with wasps. 

 They chiefly infest the top of the trees ; and the immense num- 

 bers in which they are occasionally present is most amazing. 

 What their object is, I do not know; but it may be to collect the 

 defsecations of the various flies which have swarmed there the 

 day before, or it may be to collect the honey-dew, the secretion 

 of certain aphides, which is at that time peculiarly abundant. 

 This latter view is probably the correct one, as Mr. Curtis 

 (Trans. Linn. Soc, 1802, p. 82), when experimenting on aphides, 

 found that their secretions " were devoured by bees, wasps, and 

 ants as quickly as produced.'' 



