518 THE COMMON WASP. 



first operation by forming a column, of the same materials as those 

 which are afterwards employed in the other parts of the fabric, but 

 much more compact and solid. This column the female fixes in the 

 most elevated part of the vault, which is intended to contain the nest. 

 A kind of cover is next formed, and then a small comb of hexagonal 

 cells, with their openings downward, for the purpose of containing 

 her eggs and the grubs which issue from them. 



The eggs are soon hatched, and the mother nourishes her offspring 

 with food which she brings to them from abroad. When the grul/a 

 have attained their full size, they each spin a silken bed, in which 

 they undergo their metamorphoses into pupce, and afterwards into 

 perfect or winged insects. 



The insects first produced are the neuters. These are the working 

 insects, or laborers. From their first entrance into life they are 

 occupied in the work of constructing cells, and in the duty of nour- 

 ishing the remaining grubs. 



As the females still continue to lay their eggs, the family is conse- 

 quently augmented; and the nest becoming at length too small!, 

 necessity requires it to be enlarged. This operation also falls upon 

 the laborers. 



In the month of September and the beginning of October, the brood 

 of males and females quit their pupce state. All that are left, whether 

 males, females, or neuters, are generally put to death before the end 

 of October, particularly if the frosts have at all begun to be felt. The 

 Hornets, in place of continuing to nourish the remaining grubs, are 

 now occupied only in tearing in pieces the cells, and throwing them 

 out of the nest. After this period both the males and the neuters 

 daily perish in great numbers; so that, by the end of winter, the 

 females, which are enabled to pass that season in a torpid state, are 

 the only ones that remain alive. 



Thus terminates this society, of which the greatest population 

 does not often exceed the number of a hundred or a hundred and fifty 

 individuals. 



The combs are composed of a substance which somewhat resembles 

 coarse paper or old parchment 



These insects are extremely voracious. They seize upon and 

 devour, with great eagerness, other insects, and frequently even 

 bees. Their size gives them a superiority over almost all the flies 

 which they attack ; but as they are somewhat slow and heavy in their 

 flight, these are frequently able, by their greater agility, to escape. 



THE COMMON WASP 



The nest of the common Wasp is always formed under the surface 

 of the earth, and these insects not unfrequently occupy with it the for- 

 saken dwelling of a mole. The entrance to the nest is a passage 

 usually about an inch in diameter, from half a foot to two feet deep, 

 and generally in a zigzag direction. 



When exposed to the view, the whole nest appears to be of a round- 



