Insects. 



8057 



Notes on Vespidce in 1861. By Stephen Stone, Esq., F.S.A. 



Although, from the observations I was enabled to make during the 

 summer of 1860, 1 was led to conclude that there was not in, reality so 

 great a scarcity of social Vespidse as there appeared to be, I by no 

 means expected to meet with queen wasps the following spring in such 

 immense numbers as, when that season arrived, were observed upon 

 the wing. 



Being anxious to have an opportunity of extending my observations 

 upon the fertility of the workers, and of making the acquaintance of 

 the larvae of Ripiphorus paradoxus, as well as of ascertaining the real 

 nature of the objects with which I have repeatedly found the nests of 

 wasps to be studded, particularly about the crown, and which I had 

 always thought must be the eggs of some parasitic insect, but which, 

 on being exhibited at a meeting of the Entomological Society of 

 London, were pronounced to be minute pupa cases, it was with more 

 than usual interest 1 looked forward to the time the insects should 

 begin building. 



Before the end of May I discovered several nests, in some of which 

 young wasps had been produced, thus showing that the insects had 

 commenced their labours at an early period. 



The first I took was a small one of Vespa rufa. It was removed 

 early in June. The queen was taken with it, in the hope that when 

 placed in a favourable situation she might be induced to continue the 

 work ; she, however, embraced the first opportunity of deserting that 

 presented itself. 



On the 10th of July I took out one of V. germanica, which I placed 

 in the window of a room in an unoccupied house, where the work was 

 resumed. 



On the following evening I took out another of the same species, 

 which was also removed to a room in the house above mentioned, in 

 order that the insects might there continue the work, w r hich they 

 accordingly did. When this nest was removed from its original 

 situation under ground a number of the workers were intentionally left 

 behind : two small pieces of comb from a nest of V. vulgaris, obtained 

 two years before, were suspended by a wire in the cavity, as the nucleus 

 of a future nest, in case the insects should feel disposed to construct 

 one, which, from the experience I had had in former years, I fully 

 expected would have been the case ; nor was 1 disappointed, for a few 

 VOL. XXI. 2 Y 



