HORNETS: BRITISH AND FOREIGN, 367 
species in a horse-chestnut tree, forty feet 
from the ground. Its abdomen may be 
said to be marked by yellow stripes on black 
ground, rather than by black ditto on 
yellow, as is the case with V. vulgaris and 
V. germanica. 
6. Vespa rufa ... Ground wasp allied to vulgaris and germanica. 
Reported by Saunders to be common and 
generally distributed. First and second 
segments of abdomen have black markings 
margined with reddish brown, and hence 
its name of rufa. The solitary example 
of this species In my own collection was 
taken on the banks of the Frome at Ware- 
ham in May, 1893. 
ae » sylvestris ... Tree wasp. My own examples of this species 
are from Chorley Wood, Bucks ; Tittensor, 
Staffordshire ; and Assington, Suffolk ; but 
in none of these instances did I find the 
nest. The wasps were either captured 
on the wing or (at Assington) found 
drowned in a. bottle suspended from a 
cottage window, that its contents might 
allure that and other Hymenoptera given 
to depredations on the fruit. Frederick 
Smith says that he has once or twice found 
it inhabiting an underground nest. I have 
noticed this species as commoner in Swit- 
zerland than England—at Martigny, for 
example, and still more abundantly at 
Chartres, where it greatly affects an um- 
belliferous flower. 
There are, according to Saunders, eleven species of Vespa 
in Europe, of which six are found in England. If we include 
austriaca, Which, however, is rare here, and of which appar- 
ently only the female is found, that will make seven—to wit, 
V. vulgaris, germanica, and rufa, ground wasps ; V. austriaca, 
norvegica, and sylvestris, tree wasps. Vespa crabro, the hornet, 
is to be reckoned a ground species also, for the true tree 
wasps do not, like the hornet, make their nests in hollow 
trees, but round the bough ofa live tree and round a forked 
bough preferably as tending to give additional security to 
their habitation. Tree wasps have a more slender body 
than ground ditto, and their cells are consequently smaller. 
As regards other observations on hornets that I was able 
to make in early days, I remember noticing when eight years 
old that it greatly affected the blossoms of Angelica sylvestris, 
as indeed wasps and bluebottles did also. A variety of 
insects, Diptera and Coleoptera included, are very partial to 
