VESPA, the WASP, in zoology, a genus of insects of the hymenoptera order; of which the following are the characters: The mouth is armed with jaws, but has no rostrum: the upper wings are folded in both sexes: the sting is sharp-pointed, and concealed within the abdomen: the eyes are lunular: the body is smooth, without hair: to which may be added, that the antennæ are broken, the first articulation being longer than the rest; the under wings shorter than the
upper; the abdomen joined to the thorax by a very short stalk; and the femmata three in number.
1. The crabro, has the antennæ and head of a dun colour, somewhat brown. The upper lip is yellow, and the eyes are blackish. The middle of the thorax is black; brown on the fore-part, the sides, and behind. The legs are of the same brown colour, inclining to chesnut. The first segment of the abdomen is black mixed with brown, and slightly edged with lemon colour; the others are black on the upper side, a portion of which is again covered by the upper segment, and yellow underneath. Upon the yellow are seen two black spots on each of the rings; one on each side, connected with the black colour of the upper part. This large species of wasps makes its nest in the trunks of hollow trees, and in the timber-work of lofts. Its cakes or combs are composed of a substance resembling coarse paper or rusty parchment. It is very voracious, devouring other insects, and even bees. Of those insects, some live in society, others are solitary. A distinguishing character of this genus of flies is their bodies being smooth and apparently without hair. Their upper wings, when at rest, are folded in two the whole length of them. At the rise of each of those wings is situate a scaly part, which performs the office of a spring to hinder the upper wing from rising.
rising too high in the flapping of their wings; a caution very important to those carnivorous insects who pursue their prey on full stretch of wing.
2. The vulgaris, or common wasp. These raise subterranean buildings, live in associations, feed on plunder, and commit great outrages on our wall-fruit. This numerous commonwealth is founded by a single female impregnated during the autumn, and that has weathered out the severity of the winter. It digs a hole in a dry soil, contrives itself a sinuous inlet, or else it takes up with the dwelling-place of a mole, where it hastily builds a few cells and deposits its eggs. Within the space of 20 days, they have gone through the different states of larvæ, chrysalids, and are turned to wasps. Nature, all-wise, provides for every thing. The mule-wasps, or that are of no sex, are the only ones that labour at laying the foundation of the republic. The first eggs that are hatched prove to be neuter wasps. No sooner are they come into existence, but they fall to work, enlarge the hole, and go about upon wood, lattice-work, and window-falhes, in search of materials for building. With their teeth they cut, hack, and tear off small fibres of wood, which they moisten with a liquor they disgorg, and then convey them to the work-shop. Other labourers are in waiting for them, who with those materials set about the construction of the wasp-nest; an edifice outwardly composed of sheets of paper, which not being in contact with each other, dampness cannot penetrate to the inside. This latter part consists of 12 or 15 stories, and between each runs a colonnade formed by the fastenings which connect the cakes one to the other. Every story is as it were a market-place, where the citizens may take their walks. The cells are hexagonal. It is the cradle in which the mother continues to lay eggs of neuter-wasps to the number of 15000 or 16000; after which it deposits 300 eggs of females, and as many of males. The elder brothers, or first-hatched insects, take amazing care of those born after them, by proportioning their food to the delicacy of their stomach. First, it consists of the juice of fruits and meats, afterwards it is the carcasses of insects. The eaters provide for the labourers. Each one takes his own portion; there is no dispute, no fighting. The republic grows daily more numerous, living in profound peace. Every individual, as soon as he has acquired sufficient strength, flies away to the fields. They then become a gang of banditti; they pillage our wall-trees, break into our fruit before its maturity, dart with the fierceness of hawks upon our bees, cut their throats to possess themselves of their honey, plunder and lay waste their commonwealth, riot on the fruits of their labour, and oblige them to remove. During the period of plenty, the wasps bring all the booty to the nest, and share it amongst them. There is nothing then goes forwards but feasting, rioting, and good-fellowship; but concord cannot be lasting among robbers. Towards the month of October provisions begin to run short; when this lively, this amicable young brood is fired with a kind of rage, and the nest is now nothing but a scene of horror. The neuters and males tear from their cradles the eggs, the larvæ, the chrysalids, and the new-born insects, without showing mercy to any. They next fight one against another, though their duels seldom proceed to death as those of the bees. The males alone are destitute of stings. The hopes of the state, the solicitude for posterity, the love of their native
place, no longer exist; the whole commonwealth is overturned to the very foundation. Frosts and rains throw the citizens into a state of languor. They almost all perish, luckily for us and our bees. Some few females escape the disasters of intestine war and the severity of winter, which in the ensuing spring become founders of new republics. One robber is sometimes useful in bringing another to punishment. Some butchers hang up before their shop a calf's liver or any other tender meat. The wasps come in quest of this delicate food; and, fond of enjoying it to themselves, they pursue the blue-bottle flies, from whose eggs are produced the maggots that spoil meat: and this is the only advantage we can reap from wasps.
3. The aerial wasps are a very small species; nor is their society numerous. Their history, as well as their manners, are the same as those of the common wasp; but their buildings are on a different construction. Their nest is fastened to the branch of a tree with a kind of a band, and is in bigness from the size of an orange down to that of an egg. Wood reduced to paper is the material part of it, which, if it were of a ruddy colour, might be taken for a large opening rose. It is covered over with a varnish impenetrable by water. One of those nests was neither mollified nor impaired by that element.—There are 25 other species.