THE PASTEBOARD WASP. 281 



length is not very easy. It is as easy to write the words six feet 

 as six inches, but the idea which is to be conveyed is another 

 matter, the cubical measurement being absolutely enormous. 



The gigantic wasp's nest which has lately been described is so 

 conspicuous an object that, although it is only a little more than 

 three feet in length, no one can enter the room without noticing 

 it. But a nest six feet in length is so huge as scarcely to be cred- 

 ited except from actual sight. Such a nest could hardly be taken 

 through an ordinary doorway, and there are few houses of the 

 modern build which could receive it into any room except through 

 the window after both sashes have been removed. We all know 

 how conspicuous among ordinary men is one who measures six 

 feet in height, and we shall form a better idea of the nest in ques- 

 tion if we reckon it to be equal in length to a "six-foot" man, and 

 of course to occupy much more space, on account of its bell-like 

 shape. 



Mr. TVestwood mentions the nest of an allied species of wasp, 

 which is about eight inches in diameter, and is so hard and smooth 

 on the exterior that it almost seems to be made of pottery instead 

 of vegetable fibre. This nest is in the museum of the Jardin des 

 Plantes, in Paris. 



I have already mentioned that there are many genera of nest- 

 making insects, whose habitations are in some degree similar, and 

 yet present such salient points of difference that they must be 

 classed under different heads. Such, for example, is the strange 

 genus Polistes, which is spread over a large portion of the globe, 

 and which makes so singular a variety of nests. However differ- 

 ent they may be, there is always one point of union among them 

 — that the cells are exposed to the air without any covering at all, 

 and, in consequence, are made of stouter material than those of 

 ordinary wasps, which protect the cells from the weather by a 

 covering. 



Many of this species make a nest of a nearly circular shape, and 

 attach it sideways to branches, walls, trunks of trees, or other sup- 

 ports ; but there is a very curious nest in the British Museum 

 which is made on a totally different principle, the combs looking 

 as if they were soft, flexible,, and hung carelessly over a twig. 

 There are three of these remarkable combs, having the cells very 

 like those of the common hive-bee, both in shape and size, but all 

 being of a dark brown hue. The cells are laid on their sides like 



