THE COMMON WASP. 



37 



to see with what industry and rapidity a female 

 runs along the cells of a comb, and distributes to 

 each worm a portion of nutriment. In proportion 

 to the ages and conditions of the worms, they are 

 fed with solid food, such as the bellies of insects, or 

 with a liquid substance disgorged by their foster pa- 

 rent. When a worm is so large as to occupy its 

 whole cell, it is ready to be metamorphosed into 

 a chrysalis. It then refuses all nourishment, and 

 ceases to have any connexion with the Wasps in 

 the next. It shuts up the mouth of its cell with a 

 fine silken cover, in the same manner as the silk- 

 worm and other caterpillars spin their coccoons. 

 This operation is completed in three or four hours, 

 and the animal remains a chrysalis nine or ten days ; 

 when, with its teeth, it destroys the external cover 

 of the cell, and comes forth a winged insect, which 

 is either male, female, or neuter, according to the 

 nature of the egg from which it w 7 as hatched. In 

 a short time the Wasps, newly transformed, receive 

 the food brought into the nest by the foragers from 

 the fields. What is still more wonderful is that, in 

 the course of even the first day after their trans- 

 formation, the young Wasps have been observed 

 going to the fields bringing in provisions, and distri- 

 buting them to the worms in the cells. — A cell is 

 no sooner abandoned by a voung Wasp, than it is 

 cleaned, trimmed, and repaired by the old ones, and 

 rendered, in every respect, proper for the reception 

 of another eg-o-. 



Cells are constructed of different dimensions for 

 the neuters., males, and females ; and it is very re- 



Bba 



