72 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



exertions are so disproportionate to the size of the insect, 

 that nothing short of ocular conviction cotild attribute 

 them to such an agent. A wild bee, or a wasp, for instance, 

 as we have seen, will dig a hole in a hard bank of earth 

 some inches deep, and five or six times its own size, 

 labouring unremittingly at this arduous task for several 

 days in succession, and scarcely allowing itself a moment 

 for eating or repose. It will then occupy as much time 

 in searching for a store of food ; and no sooner is this 

 finished, than it will set about repeating the process, and, 

 before it dies, will have completed five or six similar cells, 

 or even more. 



We shall have occasion more particularly to dwell upon 

 the geometrical arrangement of the cells, both of the wasp 

 and of the social-bee, in our description of those interesting 

 operations, which have long attracted the notice, and com- 

 manded the admiration of mathematicians and naturalists. 

 A few observations may here be properly bestowed upon 

 the material with which the wasp-family construct the 

 interior of their nests. 



The wasp is a paper-maker, and a most perfect and 

 intelligent one. AVhile mankind were arriving, by slow 

 degrees, at the art of fabricating this valuable substance, 

 the wasp was making it before their eyes, by very much 

 the same process as that by which human hands now 

 manufacture it with the best aid of chemistry and ma- 

 chinery. While some nations carved their records on 

 wood, and stone, and brass, and leaden tablets, — others, 

 more advanced, wrote with a style on wax, — others em- 

 ployed the inner bark of trees, and others the skins of 

 animals rudely prepared, — the wasp was manufacturing a 

 firm and durable paper. Even when the papyrus was 

 rendered more fit, by a process of art, for the transmission 

 of ideas in writing, the wasp was a better artisan than the 

 Egyptians ; for the early attempts at paper- making were 

 so rude, that the substance produced was almost useless, 

 from being extremely friable. The paper of the papyrus 

 was formed of the leaves of the plant, dried, pressed, and 

 polished ; the wasp alone knew how to reduce vegetable 



