284 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS, 
greater quantity of glue made use of than in the rest of the work, doubt- 
less with the view of giving them a superior solidity. When the first 
comb is finished, the continuation of the roof or walls of the building is 
brought down lower; a new comb is erected; and thus the work succes. 
sively proceeds until the whole is finished. As a comparatively small 
proportion of the society is engaged in constructing the nest, its entire 
completion is the work of several months: yet, though the fruit of such 
severe labour, it has not been finished many weeks before winter comes on, 
when it merely serves for the abode of a few benumbed females, and is 
entirely abandoned at the approach of spring ; wasps never using the same 
nest for more than one season. 
The nests of the hornet in their general construction resemble those of 
the common wasp, but the paper of which they are composed is of a much 
more rough texture ; the columns which support the comb are higher and 
more massive, and that in the centre larger than the rest. 
These last, as well as wasps, conceal their nest, suspending it in the 
corners of out-houses, &c.; but there are other species which construct 
their habitations in open daylight, affixing them to the branches of shrubs 
or trees, 
One of these, described by Latreille, the work of Vespa holsatica, a species 
not uncommon with us, resembles in shape a cone of the cedar of Lebanon, 
and is composed of an envelope and the comb, the former consisting of 
three partial envelopes. The comb comprises about thirty hexagonal 
cells circularly arranged, those of the circumference being lower and 
smaller.? 
A vespiary somewhat similar to the aboye, but of a depressed globular 
figure, and composed of more numerous envelopes, so as to assume a con- 
siderable resemblance to a half-expanded Provence rose, is figured by 
Reaumur®; and for a yery beautiful specimen apparently of the same kind, 
except that it contains but one stage of cells, which was found in the 
garden at East Dale, I am indebted to the kindness of Henry Thompson, 
Esq., of Hull. 
Another species* attaches its small group of about twenty inverted 
crucible-like cells to a piece of wood without any covering®, and similar 
nests, having their cells exposed without any general envelope, and fixed 
laterally to the stems of plants, walls, &c., are formed by Polistes gallica, 
and others of the same genus. 
But all these yield in point of singularity of structure to the habitation 
of Chartergus nidulans, a native of Cayenne, which constructs its nest of a 
beautifully polished white and solid pasteboard, impenetrable by the 
weather. These are in shape somewhat like a bell, often a foot and a half 
long, or even more, and fixed by their upper end to the branch of a tree 
from which they are securely suspended. Their interior is composed of 
numerous concave horizontal combs, with the openings of the cells turned 
1 Reaum. vi. mém. 6. 2 Annales du Mus. d’ Hist. Nat. i. 289. 
Bi yi t. 18) 8:1. 2, 4 Résel’s Vesp. t. 7. f. 8. 
5 Résel, II. viii. 80. Descriptions of several other wasps’ nests have been pub- 
lished in various works; but much uncertainty exists as to the different species 
forming each, and as to how far their apparent dissimilarity has resulted from one 
having been in a more or less forward state than another. See Westwood’s Mod. 
Class. of Ins. ii. 250., and Shuckard’s Notes on the Pensile Nests of British Wasps in 
Mag. Nat. Hist, iii, 458, 
