Insects. 



6645 



with their load. By marking different wasps it was shown that they 

 did not stay more than half a minute in the nest, as if for orders ; and 

 when they emerged, after a short preliminary examination, they laid 

 on their paper. The pellet was gradually attached to the free edge 

 of the sheet, the wasp pressing it down with her jaws, between which 

 it all passed. As she walked backwards, a broad black line, about 

 three-quarters of an inch long, marked the extent over which the 

 pellet had been spread ; then she ran hastily forwards, and again 

 walked deliberately backwards, flattening out the new soft paper into 

 a frill ; and this process was repeated some four or five times, till 

 the pellet had been flattened out to the same thinness as the adjoining- 

 paper, from which, in a few minutes, when it had become dry, it was 

 quite (indistinguishable. Then the wasp gravely walked into the nest 

 again. 



During the process of paper-making one could approach quite 

 close to the wasp, and even touch her without driving her away from 

 her work. It did not appear that each wasp had her own place for 

 paper-making, or her own end to piece on to, for we repeatedly saw 

 one going on where a wasp had left off so short a time previously as 

 to render it very improbable that she was the same wasp, and could 

 have collected another pellet in the interval. 



Generally speaking, the nature of the materials employed in building 

 is almost as characteristic of the species as the form of the nest. 

 Whatever other materials may be at hand, still each uses its own by 

 preference, one species using bits of wood and sand gummed together, 

 while another makes a tougher and lighter structure of vegetable 

 fibres. I am not acquainted with the nests of V. rufa and V. borealis, 

 but, of the other species, V. Crabro and V. vulgaris use wood and 

 sand, and V. britannica, V. germanica and V. holsatica herbaceous 

 filaments. 



Though the materials used by the three last-named species are the 

 same, yet the paper of V. germanica is not so firm and tough as that 

 of the other two, apparently from the mucus employed being less 

 adhesive. The small nests of V. holsatica and V. germanica which 

 T have in my collection are of a singularly uniform texture, differing 

 much in this respect from the nests of V. britannica, and giving more 

 completely the impression of having been built by one insect, which 

 had collected the fibres from the same source as long as the supply 

 lasted. 



Under the microscope the paper of these three species is seen to 

 be composed of vegetable fibres of all kinds, just such as a botanist 



