Wasp
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Wasp. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
wosp, a member of an order of stinging insects allied to the bee and ant. There are in North America about 1,700 species of wasps arranged in 17 families. The wasp has two pairs of wings. The hind wing is the smaller and is fastened to the front wing by hooks. When at rest the wings of true wasps are folded like a fan. The so-called digger-wasps with flat wings make nests for their young in the ground or in the pith of elder and sumach. Other nests are built of mud in sheltered positions. The female stings a spider or some other insect until it is paralyzed, not dead, and thrusts it into her burrow. She then lays an egg in its body and retires, sealing up the burrow. Of the true wasps, the solitary or mud-wasp has the same habits. Comstock states that the solitary wasp plastered up a number of keyholes in his doors and bureau drawers one summer. Nests of the mud-wasp may be found without difficulty around houses and farm buildings. Some species bore holes into the pith of shrubs or into solid wood in which they deposit an insect and an egg, then build a partition, followed by an insect and an egg, and so on till the burrow is full. Common social wasps build a large number of parallel cells placed like the cells of a honeycomb. These nests are built in the ground, or are attached to trees, bushes, fences, or buildings. The material of which they build is composed of lint or wood scraped fine and glued into thin gray sheets. The wasp is said with justice to be the oldest papermaker known. The entire collection of cells is wrapped with a large protective envelope of several thicknesses. Underground nests are made of yellow, brittle paper. An egg is placed at the bottom of each cell. Social wasps feed their young on insects well masticated, on sweets from flowers, and on honey dew from aphids, being in their habits between the ant and bee. Two types of social or true wasps are familiar. The first have long, slender waists. Their paper comb hangs by a slight stem, like a wide, shallow goblet, from a ceiling or other overhead surface. The second type, known popularly as hornets or yellow-jackets, are stouter, more like a bee, and build large gray spherical nests hanging by a large neck. When they need more room they tear out a side of the nest, build on more cells, and carry a new protecting wall around the addition. Several horizontal combs are connected, and separated by fine galleries. Hornets are excellent housekeepers. The family is organized on the same plan as a colony of bees into queens, drones, and workers. Comstock adds, "The species of this genus enclose the combs of their nest with a spherical paper envelope." See Ant-Bee
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
any species of the genus Vespa or of the family Vespidæ, particularly the common wasp, V. vulgaris. It lives in a hole in the ground, generally about six inches beneath the surface, approached by a crooked entrance of about an inch in diameter. This passage leads to a subterranean room, in which is the vespiary made of gray COMMON WASP paper or pasteboard in layers one above ball of 13 the other, er, and constituting a in diameter, and pierced or 14 inches which the with two round holes, through whi wasps come in and go out. The interior is occupied by horizontal tiers of combs. like floors in a house, supported by between. columns, and with passages Each cell is hexagonal, as in the combs of bees, but the material is paper. These tiers of cells are built in succession, the upper ones first. Sexually wasps are of three kinds, males, females, and neuters, the two latter armed with an exceedingly venomous sting. The last are the workers in the hive; they also go out to bring in provisions for the community. Wasps are nearly omnivorous, feeding on honey, jam, fruit, butcher's meat, and any insects which they can overpower. A share of these viands is given to the males and females, whose work lies more in the vespiary. The combs of a large nest may amount to more than 15,000. In these the females, which are few in number, deposit eggs, hatched in eight days into larvæ. These again go into the chrysalis state in 12 to 14 days more, and in 10 more are perfect insects. The males do no work. Most of the workers and all the males die at the WASP'S NEST approach of winter, and in the spring each surviving female having been impregnated in autumn, looks out for a suitable place to form a new vespiary. A wasp's nest may be destroyed by burning sulphur inside the hole. The economy of the other social wasps is essentially the same, whether like V. holsatica, they build a nest of paper in trees, or, like other Polistes, place their combs in trees or bushes without a papery defense. The economy of the solitary wasps is essentially that of their type, Odynerus, differing only in the material and locality of their nests, some building them of clay or agglutinated sand, and attaching them to or placing them in holes in walls, while a few burrow in sandy ground.