Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 4, 1802).djvu/323

291&#93; WAS the queens, or females, vhich are furnished with stings, and are mucli larger than any other wasp, on ac- 'iX)Unt of the numerous eggs they ' contain. The 7Ka/« are less than the (Jueeiis, and are not provided . Math stings : the number of these two classes is nearly equal in a nest, amounting in general to 200 or 300. The rnides are principally employed in constrading the nests, -and in providing the other wasps and the young iuse(5ls with food : like the females, they are furnished with long stings. The common wasps build their nests in the grounci, where the .females deposit their eggs singly : these are hatched in the spring ; -and, in the course of three weeks, the young inse6ts pass through the difterent states of larvae or grubs, and of chrysalids j when they be- come perfcdt wasps. The mules come iirst into existence ; immedi- ately euLirge the hole 5 and form the nest with fibres of wood, leaves, &c. ; they feed the young males and females (more judiciously than some human parents) adapting the quantity and nature of such pro- vision to the weakness of their itomachs. This food consists, iirst ■ of the juices extrafted from fruits and meat, but afterwards of the bodies of inserts. As soon as each wasp acquires sufficient strength, it flies inio the fields, and gardens, where the fruit is plundered, and bees are killed, with the view of obtaining their honey. Similar de- predation's are committed through- tout the summer ; but, in the month of Oftober, when their supply be- gins to diminish, the males and mules attack the newly-hatched inserts of their own species, and destroy them, together, with the larvae, ehrysalidsj and eggs; they WAS [191 then fall upon one another, till the frost and rain exterminate nearly the whole, excepting a few fe- . males ; which, in the ensuing spring lay new eggs, and thus become the parents of a numerous progeny j as a nest of wasps, towards autumn, consists of from 14 to 15,000 cells. 3, The comfiata, or Small Wasp, is about half an inch long: it is hatched like the preceding species, with which its habits als(t correspond. The iiests of the Small ^^'asps are construSed of woody fibres, reduced to a fine substance resembling paper : they are of an oval form ; being suspended from the branches of trees ; and covered with a kind of varnish, that rendcj-S them impenetrable to water. Wasps are not only destrudive to grapes, peaches, and the more delicate kinds of fruit, but also id bees i the hives of which they at- tack and pltinder, frequently com- pelling those industrious inseds to change their habitation. To pre-^ vent such depredations, Mr. Fou- SYTH recommends several pliialsi or small bottles, to be prepared, towards the time when the wasps appear. These vessels ai'e to be filled, half or three parts full, with a mixture consisting of the lees of beer of wine, and the sweepings <?t* sugar, or the dregs of molasses : next, they must be suspended by yellow pack-threadj on nails driveli into different parts of garden- walls^ so as to reach nearly the bottom. When the bottles are filled with inseds, the liquor iiiust be poured into another vessel, and the wasps crushed on the ground. — ^Should the weather prove vei"y hot, so that these XTiarauders become very nu- merous, and will not enter the glasses exposed for their receptioo. U 2 Mr.