On some Wasps Nests from South America. 71 



per cent, of the young rooks shot that season in tlie Wall- 

 house Eookery were marked with white, for the most part 

 on the throat or breast. Gamekeepers were struck with 

 the white patches, generally on the head of common hares ; 

 mole-catchers had never before met with so many white, 

 or cream-coloured, moles ; and in early summer, common 

 weasles were seen, which seemed as if they were under- 

 going a change of fur similar to that characteristic of their 

 congeners, the stoats. {Specimens vjere exhibited.) 



The only inference I venture to draw from the facts now 

 mentioned, and the specimens now exhibited, is, that in 

 seeking for an explanation of these random variations, some 

 attention mi^ht be oiven to the influence of weather on 

 the food supply for birds, though certainly not in the line 

 of the folk rhyme — 



" When there's muckle snaw 

 There's mony a haw." 



That, apart from weather, food itself is often the chief 

 variant, is well known. If a tame bullfinch be fed chiefly 

 on hemp seed, the plumage becomes at first dark-grey, then 

 almost or entirely black. I show the skin of a wild bullfinch 

 of this colour. 



IX. On some Wasps' Nests from South America. By 

 Professor Duns, D.D., F.E.S.E. (Specimens exhibited.) 



(Read 20tli March 1889.) 



The nests of foreign Vespidm present great variety both of 

 shape, size, material, colour, arrangement of combs, entrance 

 from the outside, and internal communications between the 

 different tiers of combs. For the most part the walls are 

 smooth, but in some they are rough, and in others knobbed 

 all over. The first specimen now submitted to the Society 

 is the nest of the earliest and best known of South American 

 forms — Chartergus nidulans^ Latreille ; Vespa nidulans, Fab- 

 ricius. This has been fully described by these entomologists, 

 Cuvier, and others. It is formed of a smooth, solid, white 

 substance resembling pasteboard, a material Avell fitted to 



