184 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OP INSECTS. 



Perty. We were, therefore, not so much surprised the 

 other day, at finding, upon the section being made of 

 a large nest at the British Museum, that all the inner 

 cells of the intermediate layers were filled with a store 

 of honey. The inhabitant of this nest is a small wasp, 

 its first segment forming a long eumeniform petiole; and 

 it is entirely of a deep black, excepting only its scutel- 

 lum, and post-dorsolum, which are of a bright yellow. 

 This insect, accordingly, differs considerably from the 

 Vespa Lecheguana, in which the first segment is very 

 short, the second exceedingly large and globose, en- 

 closing within it the succeeding segments. The cells 

 wherein this honey is deposited are, of course, of the 

 usual papyraceous material of which wasps' cells are 

 formed ; for it is not to be supposed that, because these 

 insects collect honey, they also necessarily secrete wax, 

 for they have no organ whereby the pollen could be 

 collected, and whence, by feeding upon it, wax is se- 

 creted ; whereas the honey, as in the bees, is congested 

 in their stomachs, and, when it has undergone its proper 

 process, it is regurgitated into the cells which receive it. 

 Polistes, a social genus of extensive distribution, but 

 composing very small communities, forms an exposed 

 nest, which consists of a layer of cells attached by a 

 peduncle to either a plant, tree, or wall. It is strange 

 that the genus Vespa, which contains the largest and 

 most robust of the social wasps, should form nests of a 

 much more delicate and fragile substance than any of 

 the others. These, as in the others, consist of a suc- 

 cession of parallel and horizontal layers, covered over 

 with a series of envelopes, which give a perfect nest 

 very much of the appearance of a reversed close cabbage. 

 All of these insects are of a courageous character, bold 

 in the resentment of an injury, and which they will 

 not allow to pass with impunity ; and their sting, as 

 is well known, inflicts severe pain. There appear 

 to be three different forms of aberrant VespidcB, each 

 of which have but two submarginal cells. In the 

 Masarides, which are distinguished by their short 



