6652 



Insects, 



completed, but had been covered in with five successive sheets of paper, 

 the space between the comb and the case being very small and quite 

 choked with fragments of paper. The other stages, contrary to the 

 habit of the British Vespida?, had been connected at their edges to 

 the outer case, quite firmly all round, leaving only a gallery by which 

 the wasps might mount from one stage to another. Lastly, nearly all 

 the cells had been cut down or cleared entirely away, not merely, as 

 is generally observed, in the upper, but in all the stages. 



A very probable explanation of these deviations from their ordinary 

 habits is to be found in the absence of a queen, and in the rough 

 usage to which this nest had been subjected. The latter circum- 

 stance gave every inducement to strengthen the general plan of the 

 nest in the course of repairing its frequent damages. The former not 

 only gave a definite limit to the enlargement of the nest, but to a 

 great degree relieved the workers from the duties of nurses, and set 

 them at liberty to build or destroy according to their individual tastes. 

 Not that the builders and destroyers are always two separate classes : 

 a wasp, after building, will immediately set to work to destroy with 

 equal zeal, cutting away some ragged end or some inconvenient pro- 

 jection. 



All the British Vespidas construct the interior of their nests on the 

 same general plan ; that is to say, they all build their cells, with the 

 mouth downwards, in flat combs hanging horizontally one from the 

 other. But the form of the cells is a little different in the comb of 

 V. britannica from what it is in the nests of V. germanica, V. Crabro 

 and V. vulgaris, involving certain modifications in the form of the 

 comb. In these three the upper surface of the comb rises uniformly 

 all round to a little central point which marks the insertion of the 

 main support, and the direction of all the cells is parallel and vertical, 

 or very nearly so ; but the cells of V. britannica, and particularly in 

 the small combs at the top of the nest, are made larger at the mouth 

 than at the other extremity, so that at a short distance from the centre 

 the radiating direction of the axis of the cells becomes very per- 

 ceptible. The wasps correct this in a certain measure by elongating 

 the cells and bending their mouths down, like a horn. Notwith- 

 standing this correction, however, the upper surface of the comb 

 assumes a concave form, and the cells at the circumference are some- 

 times directed quite horizontally, at right angles to the cells which 

 were first built in the centre. 



As the nest increases in size and weight the pillars or supports are 

 made proportionally stronger, and their number is increased. But as 



