Natural history of insects : comprising their architecture, transformations, senses, food, habits--collection, preservation and arrangement . thosewhich we have already described. The breacheswhich the nest may have suffered are then repaired,and the thickness of the walls is augmented, withthe design, perhaps, for more effectually excludingthe hght. The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in struc-ture with that of the wasp; but the materials areconsiderably coarser, and the columns to which theplatforms of cells are suspended are larger andstronger, the middle one being twice as thick as a
Natural history of insects : comprising their architecture, transformations, senses, food, habits--collection, preservation and arrangement . thosewhich we have already described. The breacheswhich the nest may have suffered are then repaired,and the thickness of the walls is augmented, withthe design, perhaps, for more effectually excludingthe hght. The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in struc-ture with that of the wasp; but the materials areconsiderably coarser, and the columns to which theplatforms of cells are suspended are larger andstronger, the middle one being twice as thick as anyof the others. The hornet, also, does not buildunder ground, but in the cavities of trees, or inthe thatch or under the eaves of barns. Reaumuronce found upon a wall a hornets nest which hadnot been long begun, and had it transferred to theoutside of his study window; but in consequence, 80 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. as he imagined, of the absence of the foundresshornet at the time it was removed, he could not getthe other five hornets, of which the colony consisted,either to add to the building or repair the damageswhich it had Hornets nest in ifsjirst stage. M. Reaumur differs from our EngUsh naturalists,White, Kirby, and Spence, with respect to the ma-terials employed by the hornet for building. Thelatter say that it employs decayed wood; the former,that it uses the bark of the ash-tree, but takes lesspains to split it into fine fibres than wasps do; not,however, because it is destitute of skill; for in con-structing the suspensory columns of the platforms, apaste is prepared little inferior to that made by cannot, from our own observations, decide which SOCIAL-WASPS. 81 of the above statements is correct, as we have onlyonce seen a hornet procurhig materials, at Compton-Basset, in Wiltshire ; and in that case it gnawed theinner bark of an elm which had been felled for seve-ral months, and was, consequently, dry and materials as this would account
Size: 1352px × 1848px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookidnaturalhistoryof01bos, booksubjectinsects
