846 INSECT A-WASP. 



on the *ide o f a bank, to avoid the rain or water that would otherwise annoy 

 them. When they have chosen a proper place, they go to work with won- 

 derful assiduity. Their first labor is to enlarge and widen the hole, taking 

 away the earth, and carrying it off to some distance. To prevent the earth 

 from falling down and crushing their rising city into ruin, they make a sort 

 of roof with their gluey substance, to which they begin to fix the rudiments 

 of their building, working from the top downwards, as if they were hanging 

 a bell, which, however, at length, they close up at the bottom. The materi- 

 als with which they build their nests, are bits of wood and gkie. The wood 

 they get where they can, from the rails and posts which they meet with in 

 the fields, and elsewhere. These they saw and divide into a multitude of 

 small fibres, of which they take up little bundles in their claws, letting fall 

 upon them a few drops of gluey matter, with which their bodies are pro- 

 vided, by the help of which they knead the whole composition into a paste, 

 which serves them in their future building. When they have returned 

 with this to the nest, they stick their load of paste on that part where they 

 make their walls and partitions; they tread it close with their feet, and 

 trowel it with their trunks, still going backwards as they work. Having 

 repeated this operation three or four times, the composition is at length 

 flatted out until it becomes a small leaf of a gray color, much finer than 

 paper, and of a pretty firm texture. This done, the same wasp returns to 

 the field to collect a second load of paste, repeating the same several times, 

 placing layer upon layer, and strengthening every partition in proportion to 

 the wants or convenience of the general fabric. Other working wasps come 

 quickly after to repeat the same operation, laying more leaves upon the 

 former, till at length, after much toil, they have finished the large roof which 

 is to secure them from the tumbling in of the earth. This dome being 

 finished, they make another entrance to their habitation, designed either for 

 letting in the warmth of the sun, or for escaping in case one door be invaded 

 by plunderers. Certain, however, it is, that by one of these they always 

 enter, by the other they sally forth to their toil ; each hole being so small 

 that they can pass but one at a time. The walls being thus composed, and 

 the whole somewhat of the shape of a pear, they labor at their cells, which 

 they compose of the same paper-like substance that goes to the formation of 

 the outside works. Their combs differ from those of bees, not less in the 

 composition than the position which they are always seen to retain. The 

 honeycomb of the bee is edgewise with respect to the hive ; that of the 

 .wasp is flat, and the mouth of every cell opens downwards. Thus is their 

 habitation contrived story above story, supported by several rows of pillars 

 which give firmness to the whole building, while the upper story is flat- 

 roofed, and as smooth as the pavement of a room laid with squares of mar- 

 ble. The wasps can freely walk upon these stories between the pillars to 

 do whatever their wants require. The pillars are very hard and compact 

 being larger at each end than in the middle, not much unlike the column* 



