NATURAL HISTORY. 1 10g 
longer able to provide their growing progeny a fupply, they take the 
arbarous refolution of facrificing them all to the neceffity of the times. 
0 this manner, like a garrifon upon fhort allowance, all the ufelefs 
nds are deftroyed; the young worms, which a little before they fed 
and protected with fo much affiduity, are now butchered and dragged. 
‘Tom their cells. As the cold increafes they no longer find fufficient 
Warmth in their nefts, which grow hateful to them, and they fly to 
ek it in the corners of houfes, and places that receive an artificial heat. 
ut the winter is ftill infupportable ; and, before the new year begins, 
they wither and die; the working wafps firft, the males foon following, 
and many of the females fuffering in the general calamity. In every 
Heft, however, one or two females furvive the winter, and having been 
tmpregnated by the male during the preceding: feafon, fhe begins ini 
Pring to lay her eggs in a little hole of her own contrivance. This 
bundle of eggs, which is cluftered together like grapes, foon produces 
two worms which the female takes proper precaution to defend and’ 
fupply, and thefe when hatched foon give afliftance to the female, who 
1s employed in hatching two more; thefe alfo gathering ftrength, ex- 
Wicate themfelves out of the web that enclofed them, and become like- 
Wife affiftants to their mother; fifteen days after, two more make their 
’ppearance ; thus is the community every day increafing, while-the 
€male lays in every cell, firft a male and then a female. Thefe foom 
fter become breeders in turn, till, from a fingle female, ten thoufand 
Wafps are feen produced before the month of June. After the female 
as thus produced her progeny, which are diftributed in different dif= 
tris, they affemble from all parts, in the middle of fummer, and pro< 
Vide for themfelves the large and commodious habitation, which has 
been deferibed above. 
Such is the hiftory of the focial wafp; but, as among bees, fo alfo 
&mong thefe infects, there are various tribes that live in folitude: thefe 
y their eggs in a hole for the purpofe, and the parent dies long before 
the birth of its offspring. Inthe principal fpecies of the’ Sourrary 
Asps, the infeé is fmaller than the working wafp of the focial kind: 
The filament, by which the corfelet is joined to the body, is longer and 
More diftinaly feen, and the whale colour of the infe@ is blacker than: 
1 the ordinary kinds. But it is not their figure, but the manners of 
1s extraordinary infec that claim our principal regard. 
From the end. of May to the beginning of July, this wafp is feern 
Moft diligently employed. The whole purpofe of its life feems to be 
< Contriving and fitting up a commodious apartment for its young ones 
hich is not to fucceed it till the year enfuing. For this end it 1s em 
Ployed, with unwearied affiduity in boring a hole into the fineft earth. 
Sme inches deep, but not much wider than the diameter of its own 
Ody. This is but a gallery leading to a wider apartment deftined for 
© convenient lodgment of its young. As it always chufes a gravelly 
il to work in, and where the earth is almoft as hard as ftone itlelfs 
digging and hollowing this apartment is an enterprife of nofmall 
ur: for effedting its operations, this infe@ is furnifhed with two 
teeth, which are ftrong and firm, but not fufficiently hard to penetrate 
the fubftance through which it is refolved to make its way. In order. 
€refore to foften that earth which it is unable to pierce, it is furni{h- 
With a gummy liquor which it emits upon the place, and which ren- 
ders. 
