52 
Psyche 
[March 
but anyone who has attempted to collect wasp nests without 
damage to them appreciates their fragility. Even when a 
nest is suspended from a tree or similar structure under 
natural conditions, it disintegrates in a few months’ time 
after it has been deserted by the wasps. The most striking 
feature of the fossil in this connection is that the casts of 
all “cells” are complete in the preserved portion of the 
“nest”. Because of the fragility of paper nests, it seems 
impossible for such regularity to be attained ; if only a few 
cells were so preserved, in various parts of the fossil, Dr. 
Brown’s determination of the fossil would seem more 
probable. 
Possibly some method of preservation radically different 
from that mentioned above can be given in explanation of 
the “nest” ; but our geological associates have been unable 
to suggest one. 
Apart from the difficulty of explaining the preservation 
of a paper nest, there are several aspects of the fossil which 
are not at all characteristic of a wasp’s nest. Since the fossil 
shows almost no “structure”, comparisons between it and 
nests of living wasps are very hard to make. Dr. Brown 
was consequently led to his conclusion by “general appear- 
ance and analogy”. The following differences between the 
fossil and the nests of Recent social wasps seem to us to be 
significant : a) The dome-shaped tops of the projections were 
considered by Dr. Brown to be the casts of bottoms of the 
cells. Now, although the top or open ends of the cells in a 
wasp nest show a regular arrangement, the bottoms or lower 
ends are irregularly arranged, as can easily be seen in 
sections or when the paper covering over this part of the 
nest is removed. Consequently, the regular arrangement of 
the lower ends of the cells in the fossil is not at all suggestive 
of a wasp nest . 3 b) The bottoms of the cells of Vespid nests 
are not dome-shaped, as in the fossil, but are flattened or 
angular. Also the level of the bottoms of the various cells is 
irregular, so that casts of them would be variable in height 
as well as in shape. This is not true of the fossil, however, 
3 The regularity of the “cells” in the fossil resembles the structure of 
the nests of some Meliponidae and bumble-bees more than that of a 
wasp. There are other objections, however, which eliminate these as 
a possible interpretation of the fossil. 
