[Here is an illustration of a hornet’s nest as it appears in the hollow of a tree. Industrious as is this insect, it never takes needless trouble, and alters its nest according to circumstances. As has already been seen, the combs are defended by a complete cover when the nest is placed in an open situation. But when it is built in the hollow of a tree there is no cover at all, the insect evidently knowing that the wooden wall with which the cells are surrounded, affords a sufficient protection. In cases where a cover is made, the hornets do not form only a single entrance, as is the case with the wasp, but have a large number of small entrances in different parts of the wall. Some of these entrances can be seen in the illustration on page 93.
Hornets are in one sense more industrious than wasps. When night falls, the wasps betake themselves to their home, and sleep throughout the night. But, if the moon be up, the hornet is sure to work throughout the entire night, and will often do so, even when no moon is visible.]
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One of the most remarkable of our native social wasps is the tree-wasp (Vespa Britannica), which is not uncommon in the northern, but is seldom to be met with in the southern parts of the island. Instead of burrowing in the ground like the common wasp (Vespa vulgaris), or in the hollows of trees like the hornet (Vespa crabro), it boldly swings its nest from the extremity of a branch, where it exhibits some resemblance, in size and colour, to a Welsh wig hung out to dry. We have seen more than one of these nests on the same tree, at Catrine, in Ayrshire, and at Wemyss Bay, in Renfrewshire. The tree which the Britannic wasp prefers is the silver fir, whose broad flat branch serves as a protection to the suspended nest both from the sun and the rain. We have also known a wasp’s nest of this kind in a gooseberry-bush, at Red-house Castle, East Lothian. The materials and structure are nearly the same as those employed by the common wasp, and which we have already described. (J. R.)
[We have before us a beautiful example of a nest made by this species of wasp. There are no less than three consecutive coverings quite entire, while another is about three-fourths completed, and a fifth is just begun. The illustration exhibits a very perfect specimen.]
A singular nest of a species of wasp is figured by Réaumur, but is apparently rare in this country, as Kirby and Spence mention only a single nest of similar construction, found in a garden at East-Dale. This nest is of a flattened globular figure, and composed of a great number of envelopes, so as to assume a considerable resemblance to a half-expanded Provence rose. The British specimen mentioned by Kirby and Spence had only one platform of cells; Réaumur had two; but there was a large vacant space, which would probably have been filled with cells, had the nest not been taken away as a specimen. The whole nest was not much larger than a rose, and was composed of paper exactly similar to that employed by the common ground-wasp.[X]
[This is probably the nest of V. rufa. We possess several specimens of the nest, one of which corresponds tolerably closely with the edifice described in the work.]
