THE COMMON WASP. 381 



The goatsucker resembles the swallow tribe, in the 

 proportion that the extent of its wings bears to the 

 weight of its body, but in every thing else, save their 

 hawking upon the wing, they are different; 'and 

 yet the swallows love a comparatively dark sky, 

 and that clear state of the air in which evaporation 

 is suspended ; as then they can see their prey better, 

 and seize it with more certainty. We have no space 

 left to enter upon their history or that of their prey ; 

 but we may mention that, in the lonely places their 

 habits vary considerably from what they are in 

 the neighbourhood of farms; and that by the banks 

 of the streams among the mountains they present 

 very different appearances, as their whole flights are 

 confined to local excursions along the stream, alter- 

 nately sipping the surface of the little pools, and 

 capturing the few insects that are found there. The 

 sand martin (hirundo riparia) is the species most 

 frequently met with in such localities, as it nestles in 

 holes of the steep banks, generally in colonies at 

 one place, whichsoever the stream hath upwards and 

 downwards. One subject of prey in those places is 

 the common wasp, (vespa vulgaris) which, wherever 

 there is a coppice, and consequently withered sticks 

 in one of those upland situations may be found 

 hanging, in its pendent citadel, from a bough over 

 the stream. As the dry wood from which she scrapes 

 her materials, in such a situation is bleached to a 

 much greater degree of whiteness than those which 

 are constructed in less exposed situations, the nest 

 is really a very handsome object, independently of 

 the skill with which it is constructed, both in the 



