0642 



Insects. 



those engaged in it, and the chief steps may be related here. First, 

 the nest was enclosed in a muslin bag, and without delay removed 

 from the dangerous neighbourhood to a room with an open window, 

 out of which the wasps flew as the bag was taken off. The nest, was 

 then, without further difficulty, fastened in the box, and thus returned 

 to the place whence it had been taken half an hour previously, and 

 where the houseless family were sitting on the hedge waiting for it. 

 1 need not add that their tempers on this trying occasion were truly 

 waspish. However, they returned to it at once, and immediately set 

 to work to repair the slight damage it had sustained. There seemed 

 to be altogether about three or four dozen wasps in the swarm : they 

 were always at work, and, in spite of the injury done to the nest and 

 the loss of some of the workers by the two journeys it had undergone, 

 it increased an inch in diameter in the course of three weeks. 



It remained only to close the box at night on the eve of its next 

 journey, and the swarm was secured. The last step, which fell to 

 my share — namely, to transfer the nest from its travelling case to a 

 box outside my study window, where it could be easily and safely 

 observed — was effected, without much difficulty, by the aid of an old 

 gauze veil, a long pair of polypus forceps, and a large bell glass. 



The wasps which were left behind in Gloucestershire claim a few 

 lines to complete their history. When the nest was first removed 

 from the hawthorn hedge, the stragglers which had been left there 

 immediately set about replacing it by a new one. These stragglers 

 were only four in number, and no wasp distinguishable by her larger 

 size was seen among them. At first they made a rough patch of 

 paper, adhering to the bough from which the former nest had been 

 suspended. As this grew into a hood, of an irregularly circular form, 

 a small tier of cells was hung from a pillar in the centre of the hood. 

 These cells, at first four in number, were multiplied to eight during the 

 ten days of the existence of the nest, and they had distinct eggs in 

 them. The eggs came to nothing when the nest was brought to me 

 at Brighton ; and the four wasps, deprived of their second home, 

 made no effort to construct another nest in this place. 



Again, when the original nest was taken away from the second 

 branch to which it had been fastened, the stragglers, who were more 

 numerous than on the previous occasion, built another, thus making 

 the third nest built by one colony. In less than a fortnight after its 

 removal they had constructed, on the branch to which it had been 

 tied, a new nest, of a flattened spherical form, measuring four inches 

 it) height, and three by four inches in width. A storm, about a week 



