ao 
Noe! 
oo 
HYMENOPTERA. 
and which they scrape off with their teeth; they make a sort of 
paste of these scrapings by moistening them with a certain liquid 
which they disgorge. The cells in the combs are hexagonal, and 
very regular, like those of bees.’’* 
Before beginning to build, the wasps heap up the materials 
near the place where they have chosen to establish their domicile. 
These materials are ligneous fibre, mixed up with saliva, with the 
aid of which these insects prepare the paper-like substance, which 
is very tough, and destined to form the walls of the cells and their 
exterior covering. The greater number make their habitation in 
the ground. Of these is our common wasp (Vespa vulgaris), which 
is black, agreeably contrasted with bright yellow. The Bush or 
Russet wasp (Vespa rufa), which inhabits woods, constructs its 
nest between the branches of shrubs or bushes. It is smaller 
than the common species, and its abdomen is of a russet colour. 
The Hornet is the largest European species of the family of the 
Vespide. The substance of its nest is yellowish, and very fragile, 



Fig. 347.—The Hi net (Vespa crabro). 
and is constructed under a roof, in a loft, or in the hole of 
an old wall, but most often in the hollow of a worm-eaten tree. 
Another species of this family (Polistes gallica, Fig. 348) fixes 
its little nest by a foot-stalk to the stem of some plant. 
Wasps begin laying in spring, and go on 
laying all the summer. Each cell receives one «= 
single egg, and, as with bees, the workers’ “ 
eegs are the first laid. Hight days after the 
laying, there comes out of each egg a larva 
without feet, and already provided with two 
mandibles. These larvae receive their food in 
the form of balls, which the females or the 
workers knead up with their mandibles and their legs before pre- 
* «“ Mémoires pour servir 4 I’ Histoire des Insectes.”’ Stockholm, 1771. In 4to., 

Fig. 348.—Polistes gallica. 
tome ii., p. 76. 

