Insects. 



8663 



them in a box in a cold situation. One of the three died at the com- 

 mencement of spring, and about the middle of May 1 turned out the 

 other two, which had by that time become remarkably lively, active 

 and restless. One was released at the very place in which the nest 

 above alluded to was afterwards found, while the other was taken some 

 distance in the opposite direction, at which spot, towards the close of 

 summer, a few workers were observed for a time, so that a nest must 

 unquestionably have been formed there also, and there can be little 

 doubt but that in both instances my released prisoners were the 

 architects, which, having been captured before leaving the nest, could 

 not have become impregnated : whether from that cause they were 

 unable to go beyond a certain point in establishing a colony is a 

 question which further observation or renewed experiment may 

 perhaps in time solve. 



On the 19th I took out a nest of V. germanica, which contained 

 full-fed larvae of a Volucella, and nearly full-grown ones of a smaller 

 description of fly, the produce of two out of the three kinds of eggs to 

 which allusion has repeatedly been made. Numbers of young queen 

 wasps had been produced in this nest. 



On the 23rd I took out one of V. germanica of small size ; males 

 had become developed, but no young queens ; indeed, only a few cells 

 for the reception of the latter had as yet been commenced, and none 

 of these were more than half completed. 



On the 2nd of November I took out a small nest of V. germanica. 

 Though so late in the season, and although the day was a cold one, 

 the workers, a considerable number of which were still attached to it, 

 defended it most determinedly, making what use they could of their 

 stings, but the poison contained in these, their weapons of defence, 

 had evidently lost much of its power, for the amount of pain it 

 caused was comparatively insignificant. 



I must now revert to the six sets of combs strung together on the 

 19th and 20th of August respectively, and suspended, the one near a 

 nest procured on the 11th of July, the remaining five near one 

 obtained on the 10th of that month. These combs consisted, at the 

 time they were put together, entirely of the cells of workers, and none 

 but workers gained access to them. They were quickly, as already 

 stated, covered in, and the nests increased so rapidly in size, from the 

 large number of workers which attached themselves to them, that the 

 largest measured upwards of fourteen inches in diameter by the 

 middle of October, prior to which date numbers of males had for some 

 time been making their appearance, and when a portion of the covering 



