METHOD OF NEST-BUILDING. 



Il7 



stripping or rasping up small quantities of wood or vegetable material, 

 and working these with moisture from their mouths into little pellets, 

 which each worker carries home, as it is commonly described, in her 

 jaws, but (from my own observation of the process) I should rather say 

 wider them, tucked, as it were, under her chin. Thus her jaws are 

 free for work, and when she gets to her nest (in the case of a kind like 

 that figured at the heading), then placing herself firmly in an inverted 

 position, with three legs on each side of the edge of paper to be 

 enlarged, she walks backward, spreading out her soft paper pellet with 

 her jaws until it forms a little stripe securely joined to the former 

 paper, but differing in colour according to the tint of the wood, or 

 vegetable material, of which it has been made. In urgent need, as 

 when removal of a turf had laid bare the top of a ground nest, I have 

 known well worked up clay from some holes close at hand used to 

 supply the much needed roof as quickly as possible. 



The horizontal layers of comb within the nest are formed of the 

 same kind of paper as the outside casing of the nest, each comb being 

 suspended from the layer above it by short strong pillars of the Wasp- 

 paper material, thus giving convenient room for traffic of the workers 

 on the flat top of each comb whilst attending to the needs of the young 

 family in the cells of the comb immediately above them. All the 

 labours (excepting egg-laying), whether building, or repairing, fetching 

 materials and food, clearing out rubbish, &c., have to be carried out by 

 the workers, and in the case of ground-builders, the mere enlargement 

 of the cavity to give room for the necessary enlargements of the family 

 establishment is no small labour, and for those who can watch quietly 

 it is a very pretty sight to observe the workers coming up from below 

 laden, each one, with the little morsel of earth or pebble which was 

 required to be excavated. 



Towards autumn, the economy of the nest changes, males and 

 females are produced, and shortly after the Wasp colony, as a social 

 establishment, comes to an end. The dronea, or males, having fulfilled 

 their allotted work by pairing with the females, die, so also do the 

 workers ; the nest decays, and all that remains of the summer colonies 

 and their quarters (excepting where nests may have been built in 

 some dry locality where they are as safe as in a cabinet) are the 

 females, which will leave the nest, and, hybernating in their selected 

 shelters until spring comes round again, thus complete the year's circle 

 of Wasp life. 



Two points in the Wasp economy most important to us are theii? 

 stings, and the nature of their food. It may be remarked that the 

 females and workers are furnished with stings, but not the drones, or 

 males, these are stingless. AVitli regard to the food ; taking it in the 

 sense of what is carried off by the Wasps, partly for their own food, 



