SOCIAL-WASPS. to 



the restless temper peculiar to the whole order of 

 hymenopterous insects. Reaumur found that the 

 wood which they preferred was such as had been 

 long exposed to the weather, and is old and dry. 

 White of Selborne, and Kirby and Spence, on the 

 contrary, maintain that wasps obtain their paper 

 from sound timber, hornets only from that which is 

 decayed.* Our own observations, however, confirm 

 the statement of Reaumur, with respect to wasps, as, 

 in every instance which has fallen under our notice, 

 the wood selected was very much weathered ; and in 

 one case an old oak post in a garden at Lee, in 

 Kent, half destroyed by dry-rot, was seemingly the 

 resort of all the wasps in the vicinity. In another 

 case, the deal bond in a biick wall, which had been 

 built thirty years, is at this moment (June, 1829) 

 literally striped with the gnawings of wasps, which 

 we have watched at the work for hours together. | 



The bundles of ligneous fibres thus detached, are 

 moistened, before being used, with a glutinous liquid, 

 which causes them to adhere together, and are then 

 kneaded into a sort of paste, or pajiicr macJiL 

 Having prepared some of this material, the mother 

 wasp begins first to line with it the roof of her 

 chamber, for wasps always build downwards. The 

 round ball of fibres which she has previously kneaded 

 up with glue, she now forms into a leaf, walking 

 backwards, and spreading it out with her mandibles, 

 her tongue, and her feet, till it is as thin almost as 

 tissue paper. 



One sheet, however, of such paper as this would 

 foi-m but a fragile ceiling, quite insufficient to pre- 

 vent the earth from falling down into the nest. The 

 wasp, accordingly, is not satisfied with her work 



* Reaumur, vol. vi. bottom of page 182 ; Hist, of Selb. i/ 

 22S ; and Introd. to Entomol. i. 504, 5th edition. 

 t J. R. 



