348 
LETTER XYVIL. 
SOCIETIES OF INSECTS —continued. 
PERFECT SOCIETIES— continued. (WASPS AND HUMBLE-BEES.) 
I sHat now call your attention to such parts of the history of two 
other descriptions of social insects, wasps, namely, and humble-bees, as have 
"not been related to you in my letters on the affection of insects for their 
young, and on their habitations. What I have to communicate, though 
not devoid of interest, is not to be compared with the preceding account of 
the ants, nor with that which will follow of the hive-bee. This, however, 
may arise more from the deficiency of observations than the barrenness of 
the subject. 
The first of these animals, wasps (Vespa) —with whose proceedings I 
shall begin —we are apt to regard in a very unfavourable light. They are 
the most impertinent of intruders. If a door or window be open at the 
season of the year in which they appear, they are sure to enter. When 
they visit us, they stand upon no ceremony, but make free with everything 
that they can come at. Sugar, meat, fruit, wine, are equally to their taste ; 
and if we attempt to drive them away, and are not very cautious, they will 
often make us sensible that they are not to be provoked with impunity. 
Compared with the bees, they may be considered as a horde of thieves and 
brigands ; and the latter as peaceful, honest, and industrious subjects, whose 
persons are attacked and property plundered by them. Yet with all this 
love of pillage and other bad propensities, they are not altogether dis- 
agreeable or unamiable ; they are brisk and lively ; they do not usually 
attack unprovoked ; and their object in plundering us is not purely selfish, 
but is principally to provide for the support of the young brood of their 
colonies, 
The societies of wasps, like those of ants and other social Hymenoptera, 
consist of females, males, and workers. The females may be considered as 
of two sorts: first, the females by way of eminence, much larger than any 
other individuals of the community, equalling six of the workers (from 
which in other respects they do not materially differ) in weight, and laying 
both male and female eggs. Then the small females, not bigger than the 
workers, and laying only male eggs. This last description of females, which 
are found also both amongst the humble-bees, eh hive-bees, were first 
observed amongst the wasps by M. Perrot, a friend of Huber’s.! The 
large females are produced later than the workers, and make their appear- 
ance in the following spring ; and whoever destroys one of them at that 
time destroys an entire colony of which she would be the founder, They 
1 Huber, Nouv. Observ. ii. 443, 
