7264 Insects. 



which I secured, and in both instances fresh eggs continued to be 

 deposited by them after the nests had come into my possession and 

 had been placed in a favourable situation for work. 



In order to ascertain what proportion of the workers in each of these 

 three nests — the two of V. rufa and the one of V. vulgaris — possessed 

 the power of producing eggs, I chloroformed the whole number so 

 effectually as to cause them to 



" Sleep the sleep that knows no waking,'' 



and then made di post-mortem examination of the bodies, the result of 

 which was that in each case one in every five or six was found to con- 

 tain a mass of eggs, some ready for extrusion, others in a less advanced 

 state. I have a number of these eggs preserved in spirits, and have 

 also preserved the insects from whose bodies they were extracted. 

 These I will place in the hands of Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, 

 who, I doubt not, will kindly take charge of them, and allow any Hy- 

 menopterist to examine them who may wish to do so, in order that 

 they may satisfy themselves that the specimens are those of common 

 working wasps and nothing more. 



I now made an attempt upon the nest of V, germanica, but owing 

 to the hollowness of the ground the attempt was an unsuccessful one. 

 I therefore put in an extra dose and left it until the following evening, 

 when I found the whole of the insects dead. I took the nest home, 

 but did not remove the covering for several days : when I did so I 

 found the cells crowded with eggs or larvae, just as I had previously 

 observed to be the case in the nest of V. vulgaris : there was, however, 

 nothing unusual in the shape or disposition of the combs, nothing in 

 the appearance of the nest beyond the circumstance I have just men- 

 tioned, to indicate that it was not one governed by a queen. The 

 lower comb consisted of cells of large size, evidently intended for the 

 reception of female-producing eggs. No queen was found in the nest, 

 but I am unable to say whether she might or might not have fallen 

 out of it on its removal. I could obtain no satisfactory results from 

 an examination of the bodies of the workers in consequence of the 

 decomposed state in which they had become. 



On the 7th of September I stormed and took the nest I had previously 

 discovered of V. Crabro, securing the whole colony, which consisted of 

 about a hundred individuals, alive. The means employed in the cap- 

 ture of these insects, and with them a specimen of Velleius dilatatus 

 have already been made known to entomologists, a detailed account 

 having been published in the ' Intelligencer.' The nest with its inmates 



