326 MANUFACTURE OF PAPER. 



observation, the progress of its composition. He saw on his 

 window-frame a large wasp a mother wasp of the social or 

 common species an individual such as is often to be seen, in 

 spring especially, on posts and rails and palings, busily em- 

 ployed, as his was, in gnawing into the wood. He saw her 

 detach a bundle of fibres, not to swallow but to collect into 

 a mass with her feet, and then, having caught her, he found 

 these fibres to be thin as a hair and about the tenth of an 

 inch long, not yet either moistened with gluten or rolled 

 into a ball. These, as he discovered, were subsequent opera- 

 tions ; and when assiduously performed, the accomplished 

 paper-maker had only to spread out her sheets and employ 

 them for their designed purposes, the lining of her nest and 

 the construction of her cells. 



But this, our insect paper-maker, with all her skill, is beaten 

 hollow in her craft by a foreign artizan, a wasp of Cayenne, 

 who makes a water-proof tree-suspended nest of card or paste- 

 board, " so smooth, so strong, so uniform in its texture, and so 

 white, that the most skilful manufacturer might be proud of 

 the work." Here a gem of our collection is one of these 

 superlative specimens of papeterie, the last we can now exa- 

 mine of insect manufacture. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, The bell rings to announce the 

 exhibition of objects in our powerful microscope. Those 

 selected for to-day's observation arc the tools made use of in 



it 



production (with many more) of the structures and fabrics we 



