26 
to do for several days after the nest is taken, parti- 
cularly if kept in a warm place. 
There are many curious circumstances connected 
with the habits of wasps, their mode of obtaining 
food, &c. which it is not the object of this paper to 
detail, because, as far as I can judge, they are cor- 
rectly stated in all the works upon the subject. 
I shall only refer to one other point in their natural 
history, and that is with regard to certain insect 
enemies to whose attacks they are exposed. There 
is a species of Volucella, the grub of which is figured 
in Kirby and Spence’s work", and there described as 
inhabiting the nests of humble bees. It has also 
been found by Mr. Denison in those of wasps; but 
whether it feeds on the comb or the young wasps I 
do not know. Leach also speaks of wasps as being 
much infested by a small coleopterous insect called 
Lebia Linearis. 
The active hostility which is carried on by the 
ichneumon tribe against the insect world in gene- 
ral has attracted the notice of all entomologists. 
But the social hymenoptera, the ant, the bee, and 
the wasp, have been said by the older naturalists 
to enjoy an exemption from the attacks of these 
formidable enemies: and the same statement has 
been repeated of late in the popular work of 
Messrs Kirby and Spence. ‘No ichneumon,” say 
these authors, “ has been yet found to deposit its 
“egos upon the larve of the ant, the wasp, the 
“ humble bee, or the hive bee, in which last, had 
“there been one appropriated to it, it could never 
« have escaped the notice of the Reaumurs and the 
“ Hubers.” As regards the wasp, however, it seems 
u Vol. i. p. 264 ; ii. p. 223, and Plate xix. fig. 11. 
