7090 Insects. 



over it, but being very restless, after spinning for several clays, became 

 exhausted and died. The other cells of the same nest I kept through 

 the following winter, and they produced the perfect insect in August, 

 1857. After spinning its semi-transparent cocoon the larva remains 

 unaltered, excepting in shrinking up a good deal, till shortly before it 

 changes to the perfect state. I have found great numbers of these 

 nests under stones by the water-side, at Lachine, in July. 



P.Jlavipes, Fabr. Not so abundant as P. cseruleus, but not un- 

 common at Sorel and Montreal. Mr. Gosse has published some very 

 interesting observations on this species in the ' Zoologist ' for 1844. 



Family Crabronid^. 



Crahro singularis, Smith {frigidus, $, Smith). Taken up the River 

 Rouge. 



C. interruptus, St. Farg. [coiifiuentihus, Say). St. Hilaire on the 

 Richelieu, in August. 



C. vagusy Fabr. {trifasciatus, Say). Common at Montreal, in July 

 and August. 



Cerceris deserta, Smith. Montreal, July. 



Family Vespid^. 



Vespa vulgaris, Linn. Mr. Smith informs me that he cannot detect 

 any difference between Canadian and English specimens of this wasp. 

 It is abundant about Montreal, making its nests in holes in the ground, 

 as it does in England. I fancied when I was stung by one at Montreal 

 that the pain from the wound at the instant it was inflicted was more 

 acute and burning than that from the sting of an English wasp, but it 

 did not cause so much swelling, nor was it so lasting in its effects. 



V. maculata, Linn. This wasp is abundant about Sorel, Montreal, 

 and north of the Ottawa. The round nests, sometimes of very con- 

 siderable size, are composed of a kind of paper made fi:om the fibres 

 of partially decayed wood, and are very numerous in swampy situations, 

 attached to the branches amongst thickets of small poplar and white 

 birch trees. On boarded fences, from the weather-beaten surfaces of 

 which the wasps derive much of their material, small globular nests 

 with a long neck, resembling an inverted decanter or water-bottle, are 

 sometimes seen, and still smaller ones, quite round and of a very 

 fragile texture, containing only half-a-dozen cells, are common under 

 the roofs of verandahs and in similar situations. I do not know whether 

 these various descriptions of nests are all formed by the same species. 



