Note 28 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 2)

Another kind of wasps, which are larger than these, make their nests quite open. It consists merely of one cake, which has no covering, and is made of the boughs of trees. The cells are horizontal, and when the eggs or the young larvæ ly in them, they have lids or coverings, that the rain may not come into them. But whither the old wasps retreat during storms, is a mystery to me, except they creep into the crevices of rocks. That side of the cake which is uppermost is covered with some oily particles, so that the rain cannot penetrate. The cells are hexagonal, from five to seven lines deep, and two lines in diameter. Mr. Bartram observed, that these nests are built of two sorts of materials, viz. the splints which are found upon old pales, or fences, and which the wind separates from them; for the wasps have often been observed to sit on such old wood, and to gnaw away these splints; the sides and the lid or cover of the cells are made of an animal substance, or glutinous matter, thrown up by the wasps, or prepared in their mouths; for when this substance is thrown into the fire, it does not burn, but is only singed, like hair or horn. But the bottom of the nest being put into the fire, burns like linen or half-rotten wood, and leaves a smell of burnt wood. The wasps, whose nests I have now described, have three elevated black shining points on the forehead28, and a pentagonal black spot on the thorax. Towards the end of autumn these wasps creep into the cavities of mountains, where they ly torpid during winter. In spring, when the sun begins to operate, they come out during day-time, but return towards night, when it grows cold. I saw them early in spring during sunshine, in and about some cavities in the mountains. I was told of another species of wasps, which make their nests under ground.