Obviously the figures in this table must be regarded as approximate. The number of cells varies greatly in different nests and cannot be calculated very accurately. The counting is correct, in the case of each comb, to a hundred or so. Despite the elasticity of these figures, my result agrees very well with that obtained by Réaumur, who, in a nest of fifteen combs, counted sixteen thousand cells. The master adds: “With only ten thousand cells, as there is perhaps not a cell which does not, on an average, serve to rear three larvæ, a Wasps’-nest produces over thirty thousand Wasps a year.” Thirty thousand, say the statistics. What becomes of this multitude when the bad weather arrives? I shall find out. We are now in December; there are occasional frosts, though they are not yet very serious. I know of a nest. I owe it to the man who provides me with Moles, a worthy fellow who, for a few halfpence, makes good the poverty of my vegetable-beds with his own produce. Despite the inconvenience which the proximity caused him, he has preserved the nest for me in his garden, among the cauliflowers. I can visit it at any moment that I consider opportune. The moment has come. Preliminary asphyxiation with petrol is no longer necessary: the cold weather will have calmed the fierce ardour of the inmates. The torpid insects will be pacific enough: with a little caution I shall be able to molest them with impunity. Early in the morning, then, the investing-trench is dug with the spade, amid the grass white with hoar-frost. The work proceeds satisfactorily. Not a Wasp stirs. Here is the nest facing us, hanging from the roof of the cavern. At the bottom of the crypt, rounded like a basin, lie the dead and dying; I could pick them up by the handful. It looks as though the Wasps, when they feel their strength fail them, leave their dwelling and allow themselves to fall into the catacombs of the burrow. It may even be the duty of the able-bodied ones to cast the dead out of the nest. The paper tabernacle must not be defiled by corpses. Dead Wasps likewise abound in the open air, on the threshold of the crypt. Did they come to die there of their own accord? Or did the survivors, as a hygienic measure, carry them out of doors? I incline to the idea of the summary funeral. The dying insect, still kicking, is seized by one leg and dragged to the Gemoniæ. The night cold will kill it outright. These brutal obsequies tally with other instances of savagery, to which we shall return.