MASON-^VASPS. 



25 



tection of their eggs is not entirely directed to their 

 preservation in the most favourable temperature for 

 being hatched, but to secure them against the nume- 

 rous enemies which would attempt their destruction; 

 and, above all, to protect the grubs when they are 

 first developed, from those injuries to which they are 

 peculiarly exposed. Their prospective contrivances 

 for accomplishing these objects are in the highest 

 degree curious. 



Most persons have more or less acquaintance 

 with the hives of the social species of bees and 

 wasps : but little is generally known of the nests 

 constructed by the solitary species, though in many 

 respects these are not inferior to the others in dis- 

 plays of ingenuity and skill. We admire the social 

 bees, labouring together for one common end, in the 

 same way that we look with delight upon the great 

 division of labour in a well-ordered manufactory. 

 As in a cotton-mill, some attend to the carding of 

 the raw material, some to its formation into single 

 threads, some to the gathering these threads upon 

 spindles, others to the union of many threads into 

 one, — all labouring with invariable precision because 

 they attend to a single object; — so do we view with 

 delight and wonder the successive steps by which 

 the hive-bees bring their beautiful work to its com- 

 pletion, — striving, by individual efforts, to accomplish 

 their general task, never impeding each other by use- 

 less assistance, each taking a particular department, 

 and each knowing its own duties. We may, how- 

 ever, not the less admire the solitary wasp or bee, 

 who begins and finishes every part of its destined 

 work; just as we admire the ingenious mechanic 

 who perfects something useful or ornamental entirely 

 by the labour of his own hands, — whether he be the 

 patient Chinese carver, who cuts the most elaborately 

 decorated boxes out of a sold piece of ivory, or the 



VOL. IV. 3 



