HORNETS: BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 371 
the chaplaincy of that place, they recounted to me how a 
wasp and hornet dropped struggling together from an 
orchard tree in frout of them, and how the wasp, being more 
agile, managed to dart about and sting his adversary here 
and there until the latter succumbed—Assington Vicarage, 
near Colchester, August 24th, 1897,” 
Extract from Ramie’s “ Insect Architecture,” pp. 92-95. 
“The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in structure 
with that of the wasp; but the materials are considerably 
coarser, and the columns to which the platforms of cells are 
suspended are larger and stronger, the middle one being 
twice as thick as any of the others. The hornet, also, does 
not build underground, but in the cavities of trees, or in the 
thatch or under the eaves of barns. Réaumur once found 
upon a wall a hornet’s nest which had not been long begun, 
and had it transferred to the outside of his study window ; 
but in consequence, as he imagined, of the absence of the 
foundress-hornet at the time it was removed, he could not 
get the other five hornets, of which the colony consisted, 
either to add to the building or repair the damages which it 
had sustained, M, Réaumur differs from our English 
naturalists, White, and Kirby and Spence, with respect to 
the materials employed by the hornet for building. The 
latter say that it employs decayed wood; the former, that it 
uses the bark of the ash tree, but takes less pains to split it 
into fine fibres than wasps do, not, however, because it is 
destitute of skill, for in constructing the suspensory columns 
of the platforms a paste is prepared little inferior to that 
made by wasps. We cannot, from our own observations, 
decide which of the above statements is correct, as we have 
only once seen a hornet procuring materials, at Compton- 
Bassett, in Wiltshire ; and in that case it gnawed the inner 
bark of an elm which had been felled for several months, and 
was, consequently, dry and tough. Such materials as this 
would account for the common yellowish-brown colour of a 
hornet’s nest. Hornets often choose for their home the space 
between the roof and the ceiling of summer-houses, and the 
nests that are made in such localities are mostly large and 
handsome. When hornets make choice of a tree for their 
domicile, they select one which is in a state of decay, and 
already partly hollowed; but they possess the means, in 
their sharp and strong mandibles, of extending the excavation 
2 Bg 
