PENSILE INSECTS. 269 



choose the branches of those trees for the suspension of their 

 nests. 



Sometimes the nest is only made for incubation, sometimes it 

 is intended merely as an arbor in which the male sits while the 

 female incubates her eggs, and sometimes it consists of the nest 

 and arbor united, producing a most curious effect. This " arbor," 

 in fact, serves precisely the same purpose as the supplementary 

 nest of the pinc-pinc and other birds which have already been 

 described. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



PENSILE INSECTS. 



The Hymenoptera. — Australian Insects. — The Crematog aster and Negro-head. 

 — The Green Ant, its Habits and Nest. — An African Species. — Pensile Ants of 

 America. — The Abispa and its remarkable Nest. — Ingenious Entrance. — The 

 Tatua, or Dutchman's Pipe. — Structure and Shape of its Nest. — Firmness of 

 the Walls. — Average Number of Cells in each Tier. — The common Wasp as a 

 Pensile Insect. — Gigantic Nest. — Union of three Colonies. — Character of the 

 Wasp. — The Norwegian Wasp. — Structure and Locality of its Nest. — Classifica- 

 tion of the Wasps. — The Campanular Wasp and the Northern Wasp. — The 

 Chartergus, or Pasteboard Wasp. — Mode by which the Nest is. suspended. — 

 Method of Structure. — Meaning of the Name. — Enormous Nest from Ceylon. — 

 Various Wasp Nests. — The Polistes as a Pensile Insect. — Singular Nest in the 

 British Museum. — The Gibbous Ant. — Honey Wasps, the general Characteris- 

 tics of their Nests. — The Mtrapetra. — Its singular Nest. — Structure of the 

 Walls and Use of the Projections. — The Nectarinia. — Why so called. — Locality 

 of the Nest. — Size of the Insect. — The Trigona and its Nest. — Ichneumon Flies. 

 — Different Species of Microgaster, and their Habitations. — The Perilitus. — 

 Weevils. — Beautiful Cocoon of Cionus. — The Emperor Moth and its Home. — 

 The Atlas Moth and other Silk Producers. — The House-builder Moth and 

 its movable Dwelling. — The Tiger Moth and its Hammock. — The Cypress- 

 spurge Moth. — Various Leaf-rollers. — Suspended Cocoon. — Leaf-burrowers 

 and their Homes. — The Spider. 



We now leave the birds, and proceed to the insects which 

 make pensile nests. Some of them, such as those which will be 

 first described, do not become pensile architects until they have 

 attained their perfect state, while many others form their nests, 

 either as a place of refuge during their larval life, or as an asj^lum 

 in which they can rest while in the transition state of pupa. 



Just as the Hymenoptera are the best burrowers, so are they 

 the best insect artisans when the nests are suspended, and we 

 shall therefore take them first in order. The reader will prob- 



