116 



WASPS. 



the safety of their families, and here it seems to me we have the 

 reason for the correspondingly exceptionally vast numbers of these 

 troublesome pests with which we were subsequently visited. 



At first the queen has to carry on all the work of the commencing 

 colony ; to lay the eggs, feed the grubs, gather material for house- 

 building, and use it herself for enlarging the roof of the family shelter, 

 or for deepening the cells (which at first were little more than cups) so 

 as to suit the needs of the growing grubs. Thus the first hood is 



' Wasps' nests in early stages, after photos by Dr. Ormerod, 



enlarged, additional layers of paper are added, until the little nest 

 begins to take its characteristic spherical form, and the few cells with 

 which work began are increased in depth and numbers until they 

 become a regular layer of paper Wasp-comb. The accompanying 

 figures show this condition before the nest has been closed below, so 

 as only to leave the requisite aperture for Wasp passage. 



From this time, if all goes well with the colony, the work goes on 

 regularly. The queen continues to lay eggs, and the egg condition is 

 stated to last eight days, the larva state thirteen or fourteen, and that 

 of the pupa about ten ; thus (speaking generally) in about a month 

 from the time of the first eggs being laid, the first Wasps of the season 

 begin to make their appearance. These are all abortive females, known 

 as workers, and as they keep on developing in steady succession, from 

 the succession of eggs laid by the queen, they carry on the labours of 

 the rapidly increasing community. Successive tiers of horizontal 

 comb, with cells on the lower sides, have to be built to receive the eggs 

 and accommodate the grubs, and the outside of the nest has to be 

 enlarged correspondingly, until, in the case of the common Wasps, it 

 may be of a somewhat spherical shape of any size from two or three to 

 eight or more inches in diameter. The Hornets' nest, as mentioned at 

 p. 114, may be much larger, and also very likely not entirely spherical, 

 but built against the side of a cavity in an old tree ; also the paper is 

 of a coarser kind. 



The building of the outside of the nest is carried on by the workers 



