Both Réaumur and the younger Huber studied the proceedings of the common wasp in the manner which has been so successful in observing bees--by means of glazed hives, and other contrivances. In this, these naturalists were greatly aided by the extreme affection of wasps for their young; for though their nest is carried off, or even cut in various directions, and exposed to the light, they never desert it, nor relax their attention to their progeny. When a wasp's nest is removed from its natural situation, and covered with a glass hive, the first operation of the inhabitants is to repair the injuries it has suffered. They carry off with surprising activity all the earth or other matters which have fallen by accident into the nest; and when they have got it thoroughly cleared of everything extraneous, they begin to secure it from further derangement, by fixing it to the glass with papyraceous columns, similar to those which we have already described. The breaches which the nest may have suffered are then repaired, and the thickness of the walls is augmented, with the design, perhaps, of more effectually excluding the light. * * * * * The nest of the hornet is nearly the same in structure with that of the wasp; but the materials are considerably coarser, and the columns to which the platforms of cells are suspended are larger and stronger, the middle one being twice as thick as any of the others. The hornet, also, does not build underground, but in the cavities of trees, or in the thatch or under the eaves of barns. Réaumur once found upon a wall a hornet's nest which had not been long begun, and had it transferred to the outside of his study-window; but in consequence, as he imagined, of the absence of the foundress-hornet at the time it was removed, he could not get the other five hornets, of which the colony consisted, either to add to the building or repair the damages which it had sustained. [Illustration: Hornet's Nest in its first stage.] M. Réaumur differs from our English naturalists, White, and Kirby and Spence, with respect to the materials employed by the hornet for building. The latter say that it employs decayed wood; the former, that it uses the bark of the ash-tree, but takes less pains to split it into fine fibres than wasps do; not, however, because it is destitute of skill; for in constructing the suspensory columns of the platforms, a paste is prepared little inferior to that made by wasps. We cannot, from our own observations, decide which of the above statements is correct, as we have only once seen a hornet procuring materials, at Compton-Bassett, in Wiltshire; and in that case it gnawed the inner bark of an elm which had been felled for several months, and was, consequently, dry and tough. Such materials as this would account for the common yellowish-brown colour of a hornet's nest. (J. R.) [Illustration]