Prof. R. L. Edgeworth on Irish Vespide. 469 
inches deep and as much broad, with some dry moss under 
them. Let a piece of stick be fixed over the cells, to which the 
wasps may attach their nest. Place a piece of board over the 
cells, and-bore a slanting hole in the ground for the wasps to go 
in and out; and, last of all, empty the tumbler of wasps into 
the cells. It seems to be immaterial whether the queen be pre- 
sent or not. Some sugar should be placed near, that they may 
feed themselves easily during the first twenty-four hours. Next 
morning they invariably commence to repair the injuries which 
the nest has sustained. Their first care is to fasten their combs 
by a strong pillar to the transverse stick, which, I mentioned 
before, should be placed contiguous to the cells. Without 
something to which they may attach their nest, they will not 
build; because if it cannot be suspended, it must inevitably be 
destroyed by the damp which exudes from the surrounding 
ground. Few animals are so cleanly in their internal ceconomy 
as wasps, and their first care after transplantation is to clean 
their nest from any dirt, &c., which may have fallen into it. 
This duty is in a measure consigned to the males. These males 
may constantly be seen flying out of the nest, carrying away dead 
grubs; and often when these are too large to be carried, I have 
seen the insect drag his load along the grass after him. 
It has often been stated that wasps keep a sentinel. I am 
inclined to think that V. vulgaris does not. V. vulgaris is very 
particular, at least in a flourishing nest, that the entrance should 
be quite clear of weeds, straws, and grass, that the activity of 
commerce may not be interrupted; and there is often a worker 
employed in cutting down these blades of grass, who might pos- 
sibly be mistaken for a sentinel. At one time I had nine nests, 
which I had removed to within a few yards of the house for con- 
venience of observation, and in none of these could I say that 
there was a sentinel continually on duty. Each wasp takes only 
ten minutes, or at most a quarter of an hour, in collecting wood 
or food. This is easily proved by stopping the entrance of the 
hole, and by killing all the wasps which return, and in about 
twenty minutes all will have returned except a few stragglers. 
Each wasp, on an average, appears to perform two journeys in an 
hour. 
There is a popular story originated by Réaumur, and sanctioned 
by Messrs. Kirby and Spence, and others, that at the first cold 
of winter wasps lose all the love for their young for which they 
were once so celebrated, and that, dragging their unoffending 
victims from their cells, they scatter their immolated bodies 
round the entrance of their nest. This statement appears to me 
to be entirely wrong. Possibly the grubs, in some rare cases, 
may haye been killed by an early frost, and from the number of 
