BRITISH SOCIAL WASPS:

AN INTRODUCTION TO TIP''k

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, AR 7

ANG

GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY,

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIFESAPAT SPFCIES AND
THEIR NESTS.

BY

DWARD LATHAM ORMEROD, M.D.,

CAIUS COLLEGF, CAMBRILE;

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS,
PHYSICIAN TO THE SUSSEX COUNTY HOSPITAL.

LONDON:

LONGMANS, GRLEN, READER, AND DYER.

BRITISH SOCIAL WASPS:

AN INTRODUCTION TO THEIR

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, ARCHITECTURE,

AND

GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY,

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIFFERENT SPECIES AND THEIR NESTS.

BY

EDWARD LATHAM ORMEROD, M.D.,

CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE;

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS;
PHYSICIAN TO THE SUSSEX COUNTY HOSPITAL.

LONDON:

LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER.

"Neat was their house; each table, chair, and stool,
Stood in its place, or moving moved by rule;
No lively print or picture graced the room;
A plain brown paper lent its decent gloom."

CRABBE'S TALES, "The Frank Courtship."

LIBRARY
Leland Stanford, Jr.)
UNIVERSITY

HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY,

ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

PREFACE.

WASPS have been my holiday companions for many years; and wasps and wasps' nests have occupied much of the time which was forbidden to more serious employments. Beginning with an inquiry into the nature of wasp-paper, one question has led on to another, till the detached observations have insensibly grown into a continuous Natural History.

I feel that I may point with entire satisfaction to the figures of the several species, of the excellency and accuracy of which Mr. Robinson's name is a guarantee to all Entomologists. And of the beautiful drawings of the nests, by my wife's pencil, I am sure that there can be but one opinion, in accordance with my own. The wood-engravings and graphotypes want the perfect finish which can only be given by a practised hand, but I must plead that they convey my meaning more exactly than an artist working at a distance could have expressed.

If the mode in which these observations have been collected has impressed itself too strongly on the book; if it appear only too plainly that while professing to teach others I am but a learner myself; if the space devoted to the different topics seems to have been proportioned less to their actual importance than to the interest of the passing hour; and

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