THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



139 



strong gray weather-proof paper that form the 

 material of their nests. Generally these nests 

 are suspended from the branches of trees, and 

 some of tliem when completed are much larger 

 than a man's head ; but we have occasionally 

 geen small nests attached to the lower surface of 

 the rail of a tight board-fence, and we once met 

 with a single full-sized one whicli was built in 

 a weedy place so that it touched the surface of 

 the ground. Each nest, whatever be its location, 

 is suspended from some object above it by a sin- 

 gle strong pillar, its external shape being globu- 

 lar or oval, and is covered by an outer envelop of 

 many irregular layers of paper. Inside this en- 

 velop the combs or layers of hexagonal cells are 

 placed — each suspended from the one above it by 

 numerous little pillars of the same 'papier niache 

 that the insect employs in all its architecture — 

 thus leaving an open passage-way between the 

 different tiers. These combs, constructed of the 

 same paper-like substance, and not as in the case 

 of the honey-bee of wax, difler further from 

 those of the honey-bee in their horizontal posi- 

 tion, and in containing each of them but a single 

 layer of hexagonal cells, with their mouths 

 opening downwards ; whereas those of the 

 honey-bee are well known to all bee-keepers to 

 contain a double layer, with their mouths open- 

 ing sideways, and each comb suspended in a 

 perpendicular direction from the roof of the 

 hive. In the case of the Bald-faced Hornet, the 

 cells are ixsed exclusively for rearing their larva; 

 in, each cell containing a single larva; while the 

 honey-bee, as is itotorious to every bee-man, 

 uses some of its cells for this purpose, and some 

 of them for the storage of honey to supply its 

 necessities during the cold inclement winter 

 mouths when no flowers are to be found. The 

 two insects, it may be remarked, agree with 

 each other in the singular habit of beginning at 

 the top and building downwards; and the 

 Laputan philosopher, mentioned in Gulliver's 

 Travels, ingeniously proposed to imitate this 

 peculiar feature in their architecture, by build- 

 ing the garrets of every house first of all, and 

 then gradually working downwards to the low- 

 er stories and the cellar. 



With the Social AVasps, as with all other so- 

 cial insects, there are no less than three distinct 

 kinds of individuals, namely, Males, Females, 

 and what used to be called "Neuters" or some- 

 times "Workers," In the case of the honey- 

 bee, it was long ago conclusively proved that 

 the workers, when deprived of their queen, take 

 an egg which would otherwise develop under 

 ordinary treatment into a common worker, and 

 by placing it in a cell that is much larger and 



has its mouth opening downwards instead of 

 sideways, and is always pear-shaped instead of 

 hexagonally prismatic, and by feeding the young 

 larva that hatches out from the egg with a pecu- 

 liar food, develop that larva into a fertile female, 

 or, as it is commonly called, a queen-bee. Hence 

 it necessarily follows that, with the honey-bee, 

 the workers are merely a peculiar kind of fe- 

 males, though they differ by certain invariable 

 structural characters from the other kind, and 

 there are no intermediate grades between the 

 two. For tliis latter reason the two forms can- 

 not be considered as mere varieties, the one of 

 the other, but are clearly what naturalists now 

 call '• dimorphous forms." Of late years it has 

 been further established by indisputable evi- 

 dence, that certain workers among the honey- 

 bees, without any sexual intercourse so far as 

 is known with the males or drones, sometimes 

 lay eggs which afterwards develop into com- 

 plete males. Here, however, it is exclusively 

 males that are thus generated ; and as it has been 

 shown by Siebold, a German naturalist, that the 

 ordinary males of every hive proceed from un- 

 fertilized eggs laid by tiio queen-bee, we may 

 infer by analogy that the males thus abnormally 

 produced by worker-bees also proceed from un- 

 fertilized eggs. From all these facts, it follows 

 that, in the case of the honey-bee at all events, 

 the term "neuter," as applied to the w'orker, 

 is clearly a misnomer. 



So far as regards the Social M^asps, it has 

 within the last few years l>een demonstrated in 

 England, that Workei'-wasps can and do gen- 

 erate other "Worker-wasps, without any inter- 

 course widi the male sex.* AYhether they can 

 also generate, in the same manner, the so-called 

 female wasps or queen wasps, and the male or 

 drone wasps, remains to be proved; but we 

 should not be surprised if it turns out that they 

 can. For with many distinct Families of insects 

 —for example, the Gall-flies, the Plant-lice, and 

 certain Families of moths — it has been shown 

 that several consecutive generations of fertile 

 females may successively come into the world 

 without any sexual connection whatever.f Be 

 this as it may, it is quite clear that, both in the 

 case of the honey-bee and in that of the Social 



• See Stiiinton'.^ Entomologist's Annual for 1801 , i)p. 37-39 

 It is proved by the experiments of several independeut Eng- 

 lish obseners, that in wasps' nests, from which the queen 

 wasp was removed quite early in the spring, the generation 

 of workers continues through the season as freely iis if the 

 queen wasp had been still present there to lay eggs. There- 

 fore these newly generated worliers must iiroceeil from eggs 

 laid by workers; and as no males or workers ever live 

 through the winter and the males only make their apr e:ir- 

 auce towards the autumn, tliese egg-laving workers could 

 not possibly have been impregnated by intercourse witli " 

 the opposite sex. It would be interesting to repeat these 

 experiments with some of our American Social Wasps 



ton this recondite subject see the note in Xo i; of 1l»- 

 American- Entomologist, p. 103. 



