Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/196

168 common as Vespa vulgaris, but is scattered all over the country; I have taken it in Yorkshire. I have observed that its nests are smaller than those of V. vulgaris, and its societies less numerous in individuals.

Female.—Length 9 lines. Head black; clypeus yellow, with generally a minute black dot in the centre; scape of the antennae in front, a line close to the inner, another on the upper part of the outer margin of the eyes, yellow; mandibles yellow, their inner margin black. Thorax black; a line from the tegulae (which are black, having sometimes a small yellow dot), a spot under the wings and two on the scutellum, yellow; the third submarginal cell in the wings of this and the following species is widest towards the marginal cell: legs yellow, the thighs black, yellow at their apex, a black spot generally behind on the anterior tibiae, terminal joints of the tarsi ferruginous. The abdomen has a black band at the base of all the segments, that on the second is widest and tridentate, the following are generally unidentate, the third also is sometimes tridentate.

The Neuter exactly corresponds with the female. Length 6 lines.

Vespa holsatica. k male, i female, m neuter.

The Male has the antennae filiform, proportionably stouter than in V. vulgaris; in other respects, and in colouring, it corresponds with the other sexes, except that the abdominal bands are not so frequently dentate. Length 6—7 lines.

Linnaeus appears to have drawn up his description from a specimen of the neuter, and he says "half the size of V. vulgaris."

Although I consider this species essentially a tree-wasp, still it sometimes constructs its nest in banks in the West of England. A friend of mine collected some tree-wasps for me in his garden in Yorkshire, and they consisted principally of V. holsatica; I also possess a nest which I took out of a gooseberry-bush: still I found a nest in