156 E. M. CAMPBELL-OUE SOCIAL WASPS. 
be entertained for the working-wasps. They are ‘‘workers” but 
in name, and summary execution is the only sentence on creatures 
which are now useless and dangerous. As for the deserted city, 
the rain rots the paper walls, which soon become covered with 
fungoid growth, while the wood-lice are the only inhabitants of 
the ruins. Such is the history of the rise and fall of a wasp’s nest, 
which in a few weeks has run its course. 
I have already referred to the way in which the wasps manu¬ 
facture the paper of which their nests are composed. They are 
frequently to be seen engrossed in gathering filaments from old 
timber or from vegetation, which they roll into a little pellet and 
carry between their mandibles to their nest. What follows is best 
described by Dr. Ormerod,* 4 who noticed a wasp thus burdened 
“enter her nest for half a minute, when she emerged, mounted 
astride of one of the covering sheets. She pressed her pellet firmly 
down with her fore-legs till it adhered to the edge, and, walking 
backwards, continued this process of pressing and kneading till the 
pellet was used up, and her track was marked by a short dark 
cord lying along the thin edge to which she had fastened it. Then 
she ran forwards, and as she returned again backwards over the 
same ground, she drew the cord through her mandibles, repeating 
this process two or three times till it was flattened out into a little 
strip or ribbon of paper which only needed drying to be ^dis¬ 
tinguishable from the rest of the sheet to which it had been attached, 
and then she gravely retired into the nest again.” Each wasp 
seems to work like a hive-bee on its own account, here, there, and 
everywhere, without any organization of labour. It is stated that 
only young wasps build, and this is supposed to be due to the 
glands which secrete their saliva being more active. The queen 
wasp also abandons her architectural operations as she advances in 
age, and confines herself to her maternal duties. 
The horizontal layers of cells are not connected with the paper 
covering except at the top, but this is not always the case with the 
hornet’s nest. The commencement of each layer of cells is made 
after the same fashion as that of the nest, by attaching to the 
centre of the lower layer a strap, at the end of which a few cells 
are first formed. The cells are increased in the same way as the 
outer wall, by the gradual laying on of material, which, however, 
is of a closer texture. I have already stated that the cells are 
hexagonal, but their base appears to have no geometrical form, and 
is very different from the beautiful inverted pyramid consisting of 
three rhombs, which constitutes the base of the cell of the hive-bee. 
The cells of the wasp may be described as commencing at the 
bottom with a small pouch which gradually expands into a hexagon. 
The increasing size of the cells prevents them from all being 
vertical, and in a large layer, the outside cells approach, though 
they do not reach, a horizontal position. 
The nests of the different species of wasps, although of one type, 
vary in detail. They are all constructed of paper, yet each species 
* ‘ British Social Wasps,’ p. 193. 
