PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 113 
beeh so wet, and one may almost say winterly, there 
were in the neighbourhood in which I reside abundance 
of wasps at the usual time; but, except on some few warm 
days, in which they were very active, benumbed by the 
cold they were crawling about upon the floors of my 
house and seemed unable to fly. In this vicinity numbers 
make their nests in the banks of the river. In the begin- 
ning of the month of October there was a very considera- 
ble inundation, after which not a single wasp was to be 
seen. ‘The continued wet that produces an inundation 
may also destroy those nests that are out of the reach of 
the waters;—and perhaps this cause may have ope- 
rated in those years above alluded to, in which the ap- 
pearance of the workers in the summer and autumn did 
not correspond with the large numbers of females ob- 
served in the spring. 
In ordinary seasons, in the month lately mentioned, 
October, wasps seem to become less savage and sangui- 
nary; for even flies, of which earlier in the summer they 
are the pitiless destroyers, may be seen to enter their 
nests with impunity. It is then, probably, that they begin 
to be first affected by the approach of the cold season, 
when nature teaches them it is useless longer to attend to 
their young. They themselves all perish, except a few of 
the females, upon the first attach of frost. 
Reaumur, from whom (see the sixth Memoir of his 
last volume) most of these observations are taken, put 
the nests of wasps under glass hives, and succeeded so 
effectually in reconciling these little restless creatures 
to them, that they carried on thei various works under 
his eye: and if you feel disposed to follow his exampie, 
I have no doubt you will throw light upon many parts 
VOL, Il. I 
