ENTOMOLOGICAL CABINET. 



VESPA VULGARIS. Authors. 

 Common wasp. 



Black : head black, front between the eyes yellow : 

 clypaeus and jaws of the same colour : antennae 

 black : eyes large brown aud kidney-shaped ; stem- 

 mata three : thorax black, with two yellow streaks 

 from the neck to the wings : wings yellow : body 

 yellow, with the base of each ring black, and with 

 two black spots on each yellow band : legs yellow. 



Length of the body 8 lines, expansion of the wings 

 15 lines. 



Inhabits trees, and sometimes builds in the earth, 

 especially in chalky places. 



"The economy of a nest of wasps differs from that 

 of bees, in that the eggs are laid not by a single 

 mother or queen, but by several ; and that these 

 mothers take the same care as the workers in feed- 

 ing the young grubs : indeed those first hatched are 

 fed entirely by the female which produced them, the 

 solitary founder of the colony. The sole survivor 

 probably of a last year's swarm of many thousands, 

 this female, as soon as revived by the warmth of 

 spring, proceeds to construct a few cells, and de- 

 posits in them the eggs of working wasps. The eggs 

 are covered with a gluten, which fixes them so 

 strongly against the sides of the cells, that it is not 

 easy to separate them unbroken. These eggs seem 

 to require care from the time they are laid, for the 

 wasps many times in a day put their heads into tin 1 

 23-6 52 



