Insects. 



6651 



had a more abundant supply of the mucous secretion which binds 

 the fibres of their paper together. To the smaller wasps are assigned 

 the duties of nurses and police. Tn the nest whose history I am 

 endeavouring to keep in view amid all these digressions, it seemed 

 that the post of sentinel was usually allotted to small, old, expe- 

 rienced wasps ; and in the cold, wet days, which brought the colony 

 into the straits 1 have described, the two little, busy, active old wasps 

 seemed the nurses of those that shrunk from facing the wind and rain. 



In the first instance the newly-hatched wasps look small, whitish 

 and shrivelled ; but when the mealy appearance which they wear at 

 their birth has passed away, as their down rises and exposure to the 

 sun brings out their colours, and when they have taken their place 

 with the other wasps, they are distinguishable by their larger size as 

 well as brighter hues, and the smooth edges of their wings. 



The difference in size of different workers of the same swarm is, 

 however, not so considerable as it appears at first sight to be. Age 

 or infirmity, hunger or cold, will shrink up the abdomen, on the size 

 of which so much of the apparent size of the whole wasp depends ; 

 and a good meal, or a warm sun or fire, will make many a decrepit 

 wasp look young again. But a real difference may be proved to exist 

 by measuring parts which are not capable of such great distention or 

 contraction. By the aid of the microscope I have found the limb of 

 one wasp longer by more than a twentieth part than the corresponding 

 limb of another wasp ; and a still greater difference may be found by 

 measuring the heads of different wasps of the same swarm. 



A few more lines will suffice to convey all that remains to be told 

 of the history of this nest. The few remaining wasps, judging from 

 the continual nibbling and scratching, wery very busy inside, but 

 they rarely came out of their own accord, and even when the nest 

 was shaken only a few wasps flew lazily out. On the 8th of Septem- 

 ber I cut away the front of the nest, and discovered nine wasps only, 

 the last remains of the colony, all workers, living a kind of bachelor 

 or rather old maidish life between two tiers of comb. They were 

 very sluggish, and made no attempt to oppose my operations on the 

 nest. The warm sunlight thus let in seemed, however, to rev ive them, 

 and they went on at once with their work of destruction of the comb. 

 Moved into a box, they lingered on, fewer in number and smaller in 

 size day by day, till September 25lh, when the last of them died, having 

 been about two months under observation. 



It was interesting now to see the changes that had been going on 

 out of sight within the nest. The lowest comb had never been 



