62 



Genus LIX. VESPA. 



GENERIC CHARACTER. 



Antenna filiform, increasing in size towards the 

 end. Mouth armed with jaws, no tongue. 

 Palpi four, unequal, and filiform. Eyes like 

 a crescent. Upper zvings plaited. Body 

 smooth. Sting concealed within the abdo- 

 men. 



General Observations. 

 Wasps build their upright oval nests of bits 

 of wood and glue. The males are employed to 

 collect the wood from the frames of windows, 

 and from old posts and rails. They use their 

 strong jaws to cut the wood, and carry away 

 the saw-dust with their feet, making it into a 

 piass at the nest, with a glutinous liquor which 

 falls from their mouth. The nest is twelve 

 inches or more in diameter, and is formed of 

 several horizontal stages of hexagonal cells. 

 The substance of the nest, after being kneaded 

 and worked by the industrious inhabitants, is 

 very like coarse whitish-brown paper. In each 



