383 



LETTER XVIII. 



SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. * 



PERFECT SOCIETIES — Continued, (wasps and humble-bees.) 



I SHALL now call your attention to such parts of the history of two other 

 descriptions of social insects, wasps, namely, and humble-bees, as have 

 not been related to you in my letters on the affection of insects for their 

 young, and on their habitations. What I have to communicate, though 

 not devoid of interest, is not to be compared with the preceding account 

 of the ants, nor with that which will follow of the hive-bee. This, how- 

 ever, may arise more from the deficiency of observations than the barren- 

 ness of the subject. 



The first of these animals, wasps (Vespa) — with whose proceedings I 

 shall begin — we are apt to regard in a very unfavorable light. They are 

 the most impertinent of intruders. If a door or window be open at the 

 season of the year in which they appear, they are sure to enter. When 

 they visit us, they stand upon no ceremony, but make free with every 

 thing that they can come at. Sugar, meat, fruit, wine, are equally to their 

 taste; and if we attempt to drive them away, and^re not very cautious, 

 they will often make us sensible that they are not to be provoked with 

 impunity. Compared with the bees, they may be considered as a horde 

 of thieves and brigands; and the latter as peaceful, honest, and industrious 

 subjects, whose persons are attacked and property plundered by them. 

 Yet, with all this love of pillage and other bad propensities, they are not 

 altogether disagreeable or unamiable ; they are brisk and lively ; they do 

 not usually attack unprovoked ; and their object in plundering us is not 

 purely selfish, but is principally to provide for the support of the young 

 brood of their colonies. 



The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other social Hymenoptera, 

 consist of females, males, and woi'kers. l^he females may be considered 

 as of two sorts : first, the females by way of eminence, much larger than 

 any other individuals of the community, equalling six of the workers (from 

 which in other respects they do not materially diifer) in weight, and laying 

 both male and female eggs. Then the small females, not bigger than the 

 workers, and laying only male eggs. This last description of females, 

 which are found also both amongst the humble-bees and hive-bees, 

 were first observed amongst the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of 

 Huber's.^ The large females are produced later than the workers, 

 and make their appearance in the following spring ; and whoever de- 

 stroys one of them at that time destroys an entire colony, of which 

 she would be the founder. They are more worthy of praise than 

 the queen-bee ; since upon the latter, from her very first appearance in 

 the perfect state, no labor devolves — all her wants being prevented by a 



' Huber, Nouv. Observ. ii. 443. 



