Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/328

316 very great number of authors have written express treatises on bees, periodical works have been published relating exclusively to their management and economy, and learned societies have been established for the sole purpose of conducting researches on this subject." When we have such facts as these before us one is enabled to form some estimate as to what the literature of the entire order Hymenoptera would amount to as a whole.

Nor has the historical naturalist neglected the wasps in his labors, for the literature upon these remarkable insects is likewise very voluminous. They constitute the true Hymenoptera aculeata, Kirby using the term Diploptera, dividing them into three families. Of these, the social wasps (Vespidæ) are represented by a number of genera in various parts of the world, containing a host of interesting species. Some of these are of small size, while others stand among the biggest of the entire group. One form found in China and Japan measures two inches across the wings. Many of these wasps sting with great severity, and it has been related of Mitchell, the Australian explorer, that he was stung by a species found in that country, and the pain caused thereby forced him to scream out with agony. It had the effect of temporarily paralyzing his leg, and the great spot on the limb occasioned by the injected poison did not disappear for at least six months. Many wasps are brilliantly colored, while the external structural parts of others are extremely unique. For example, the Masaridæ of Africa and Australia is a family in which the antennæ present a great variety of shapes, some of them even being clubbed, while others are extremely long and slender. Numerous species of wasps and hornets are fossorial by habit, either constructing underground burrows for themselves or else occupying those formed by other insects. Some of these types are very large, some are small, some are solitary by habit, others live in communities. We have one big species of fossorial wasp that I have studied at