±HK wasp; 
507 
i’Otind iioie in the centre, by which the wafps are enabled 
to afcend or defcend to different flats of their building *. 
In the mean time, while thefe operations are carrying 
on by the joint labours of the hive, the mother wafp con- 
tinues to lay till Ihe has produced fifteen or fixteen thou- 
fand neuters or mules, and about five or fix hundred 
males and females : The commonwealth day by day 
increafes in numbers, and enjoys peace. Towards the 
thonth of OBobcr, provifions begin to grow fcarce, and a 
new fcene enfues : This hitherto amicable tribe feems 
then fired with mutual rage ; and the whole edifice pre- 
fents one fcene of maffacre The neuters and males tear 
from their cradles the eggs, the larvte, and new born in- 
fects, with undiftinguilhing fury. They next fight one 
againft another. Hopes of the ftate, folicitude for po- 
flerity, or love to their native place, now no longer exiil 5 
the whole commonwealth is fhaken to the foundation. 
Rains and frofts enfue ; the citizens are feized with dif- 
eafe and languor ; and happily for the other infedts, and 
the fruit gardens, almoft the whole die. Some few fe- 
males el'cape from the difafters of civil war, and the fe- 
verity of winter, and again in the enfuing fpring become 
the founders of new empires, which are again to be over- 
turned f. 
* Reaumur, ubi fupra. f Barbut’s Gen. Infcft. p. *6*. 
