Oct—Dec.,1919 Bulletin of Brooklyn Entomological Society 121 
In Smith’s Insects of New Jersey, 1909, fig. 277, there is an illus- 
tration of one of these small beaked nests of Vespa maculata 
“just started.” 
While the different kinds of Vespa will occasionally eat each 
other, probably: their greatest enemies, in addition to parasites, 
are to be found among the flies of the family Asilide. I have 
found a Vespa maculata being sucked dry by the fly Proctacanthus 
philadelphicus at Deep Pond, Wading River, Long Island, N. Y., 
August 7, 1912, and Vespa commumis being so eaten by an Asi- 
lid fly at Writesville, N. J., August 22, 1912. On the other 
hand, I have captured a Vespa carolina at Wingina, Va., August 
I, 1916, while in the act of devouring an Asilid fly. Vespa macu- 
lata is a catcher of flies, as is well known, but the wasp does not 
appear to see its prey at any great distance, and will often go 
bumping about the sides and top of the tent some time before it 
catches some of the nearby flies. On August 8, 1912, a Vespa 
vidua was observed at Long Pond, Wading River, Long Island, 
N. Y., in the act of devouring a damsel dragon fly that had just 
emerged. Some of our species of Vespa will also devour almost 
any dead animal, and among others I have seen them eating a 
house sparrow and a water-snake. Vespa crabro is very fond of 
sap from almost any tree, and I have seen them about birch, 
maple, poplar and oaks, often at the wounds produced by some 
wood-boring larve. All Vespas are fond of the excrement of 
plant lice, perhaps even more so than of over-ripe fruits. 
- When the wasps leave their jug-shaped nests at the approach 
of cold weather, they are sometimes taken possession of by other 
creatures, and I have found at Watchogue, Staten Island, a 
Vespa maculata nest in which a mouse had its domicile. On 
December 13, 1908, I saw a tufted titmouse flying about a large 
nest of Vespa maculata, and directly the bird disappeared into 
the bottom of the nest. It was probably looking for the remains 
of dead wasps. — 
It is often said of Vespa and Polistes that each hibernating 
queen “starts a colony of its own in the spring.” In the Ameri- 
can Naturalist for 1874 C. V. Riley gives a review of the state- 
ments of Siebold concerning the life history and habits of Polis- 
tes. This author also finds that a single queen Polistes starts 
