382 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



females. They dwell together in communities, 

 sometimes containing over 2,000 individuals, in 

 wonderfully constructed nests made of wood paper. 

 These nests are placed in various situations 

 by the different species. Some (V. germanica, 

 vulgaris and rufa) usually select a ready-made 

 hole in the ground, or other suitable cavity ; 

 others (V. sylvestris usually, and norvegica 

 invariably) hang their nests exposed in bushes 

 and trees. The " paper " material made by the 

 latter is stout and tough to withstand the 

 weather, while that of the ground builders is thin 

 and fragile. Unlike the larvae of the solitary 

 Fossores, feeding upon insects paralyzed by the 

 sting of the parent wasp, and stored up by her in 

 the burrows for their use after her death, the 

 young grubs of the genus Vespa are fed regularly 

 by the workers living with them in the nests. 

 Their diet consists mainly of insects or other 

 animal food, which is semi-masticated by their 

 devoted attendants before it is supplied to them. 

 Like those of the ants, the nests of our social 

 wasps are regularly inhabited by certain other 

 insects belonging to various orders. The list 

 of inmates hitherto found in wasps' nests includes 

 some seventy-five species of Coleoptera, about ten 

 species of Diptera, a few Hemiptera, several 

 Hymenoptera, and certain Acarida and 

 Crustacea. Some are foes, others possibly 

 friends, useful as scavengers, &c, but very many 

 are merely casual pilferers or visitors. Certain 

 Coleoptera pass their metamorphoses in the nests 

 of various wasps. The curious Metcecus 

 paradoxus, L., feeds upon the grubs of its host, 



