7 2 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



of comb. Here, however, at last, was ample 

 reward ; for though their number did not exceed a 

 score, the inmates of a dozen of them had their 

 colours and marking sufficiently evolved to clearly 

 distinguish them as of the species V. austriaca. 

 Four of them, indeed, had their wings expanded 

 and body divested of the pupal pellicle. As with 

 the females, so it was with the males, the dis- 

 tinctive character of the clypeus, when the cap 

 of the cocoon was cut open and the head of the 

 occupant revealed, at once indicated the species, 

 it being here immaculate and with its lower margin 

 " sub-dentate." 



From the foregoing inventory of this small nest 

 of the V. rufa, in part made when the nest was 

 taken and in part subsequently, it would appear 

 either that some fatality had overtaken the foundress 

 queen at an early period in the history of the 

 community, that one or more of the workers had 

 then commenced to lay ova from which male or 

 drone brood developed, and that subsequently the 

 parasitic or inquiline V. austriaca took possession 

 of the nest, and commenced to oviposit in conjunc- 

 tion with the workers of V. rufa; or, that the 

 queen V. rufa, being imperfectly impregnated, or 

 diseased, had commenced early to lay unfertilized 

 ova from which drone brood only was evolved, and 

 had then succumbed to natural decay, disease or 

 accident, or had possibly lost its life in combat 

 with the usurping and succeeding austriaca, and 

 had finally, like its successor, been dragged out of 

 the nest. That workers of the V. rufa had de- 

 posited ova in the later part of the history of this 

 mixed community was obvious enough from the 

 presence of ova in the four very recently vacated 

 queen cells. That the nest had been founded by a 

 queen V. rufa was also obvious from the fact of 

 workers and drones of that species being present, 

 as well as from the structure of the nest. Whilst 

 the fact of V. austriaca having usurped the nest and 

 utilized the energies of the workers of V. rufa in 

 rearing her brood of males and perfect females, 

 was made more than apparent by the presence of 

 that brood, and the fact of the economy of the 

 nest being normally carried on for fully eleven 

 days after her decease, and the removal of her 

 body from it. 



Vespa austriaca being thus shown to be a parasitic 

 or inquiline species consisting of males and females 

 only, it will be scarcely philosophic to allow it to 

 remain in the genus Vespa. This difference in 

 habit and constitution will almost certainly be 

 found to be correlated with some more or less 

 profound modification of structure. Such is the 

 case in Psithyrus (Apathus Newman), undoubtedly 

 a degenerate and modified Bombus. The same 

 habit and constitution of .parasitism and sex ar% 

 found to be correlated with an absence of the bee- 

 bread conveying apparatus or corbicula and the 



wax-plate extractors or nippers. The loss of the 

 latter, most probably accompanied with a de- 

 generacy or absence of the wax-secreting glands or 

 organs, disqualifies this pseudo Bombus for the 

 building of cells, as the lack of the former does for 

 the conveyance of food. Consequently it is also 

 disqualified for the rearing of its own young, as is 

 practised by the host, the true Bombus, upon which 

 it imposes the rearing of its progeny. 



Given a sufficient quantity of fresh material — 

 healthy spring females — to work upon, it would be 

 probably found that there was some very con- 

 siderable deterioration of the salivary glands, as 

 compared with the true Vespae, which incapacitates 

 austriaca, the pseudo Vespa, for paper-making. 

 Saliva is the first essential towards the founding 

 or building the nest as constructfd by the genus 

 Vespa. The demands upon the functional powers 

 and activity of the saliva or mucus-secreting 

 organs must be great indeed, as may readily be 

 appreciated by watching a Vespa engaged in rasp- 

 ing or gnawing off fibres of wood from a weathered 

 but sound pale or post. It has to moisten liberally 

 the portion operated upon with the secretion 

 as the process of gnawing proceeds ; consider 

 also the demands that are necessarily made upon 

 them in the subsequent working up of the pellet 

 of fibres into paper pulp, and in its application to 

 the case or covering and cells of the nest. Hence, 

 the parasitism of this wasp austriaca upon Vespa, 

 from whom one need scarcely question she has 

 descended, and from whom she will most probably 

 be gradually more and more differentiated as a 

 result of this different mode of life. In her we 

 have an example of a comparatively recent or 

 modern differentiation or evolution of a species 

 and genus, a genus, so far as I am aware, yet to 

 be named, and rightly founded on this difference 

 in habit and constitution. The most probable 

 correlated modification of structure will be, that 

 the mandibles are somewhat smaller and less 

 rugged, and the ligula or tongue is smaller than 

 in the V. rufa. 



Frederick Smith, in his description of V. 

 arborea ( 4 ), of which he was the discoverer in Great 

 Britain, thus describes it in 1837 : " The same size 

 as V. rufa, female, and similarly coloured, but 

 having very rarely any tinge of rufous; the clypeus 

 more produced, emarginate, and the angles sub- 

 dentate, never having a central line, but only 

 three minute dots ; it also differs from V. rufa in 

 having the legs stouter, longer, and very pubes- 

 cent ; the colour of the abdomen is different, being 

 sulphur-yellow ; the crown-shaped spot above the 

 clypeus is larger, and deeply notched above ; the 



(') "Catalogue o! British Fossorial Hymenoptera, Fortni- 

 cidae and Vespidae, in the collection of the British 

 Museum," by Frederick Smith: London, 1858. The name 

 austtiaca, of Panzer, was given last century to this species, so, 

 being the earlier, supersedes Smith's arborea. 



