Wonderful as all the appointments and endowments of insects are, there is no part of their economy more extraordinary than the infinite variety of forms and materials to which they have recourse in the fabrication of their nests; and, as far as we can comprehend, their expediency for the various purposes required. Among those, with which I am acquainted, none pleases me more than that of a solitary wasp (vespa campanaria), which occasionally visits us here. It is not a common insect; but I have met with their nests. One was fixed beneath a piece of oak bark, placed in a pile; another was pendent in the hollow of a bank of earth. The materials, which composed these abodes, seemed to be articles scraped or torn from the dry parts of the willow, sallow, or some such soft wood, and cemented again by animal glue, very similar in texture to that provided by the common wasp, which makes great use of the halfdecayed wood of the ash, and will penetrate through crevices in the bark, to abrade away the dry wood beneath. They seem to have but small families, ten or twelve cells only being provided. These are situate at the bottom of an egg-shaped cup, contracted at the lower end, where an orifice is left for the entrance. This again is covered, in the part where the cells are placed, by a loose hood, or shed, extending about halfway down the inner one. The pendent situation of the whole, and this external hood, round which the air has a free circulation, are admirably contrived for securing the cells from injury by water. The nest, when hanging in its proper situation, is like the commencement of some paper- work flower, and can never be observed but with admiration at the elegance of its structure; and the unusual appearance of the whole must excite the attention of the most incurious observer of such things.