FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



she is quite willing to content herself in any snug corner: 

 a conservatory, a kitchen-ceiling, the recess of a closed 

 window, the wall of a cottage bedroom. As to the 

 foundation on which she fixes her nest, she is entirely 

 indifferent. As a rule she builds her groups of cells 

 on stonework or timber; but at various times I have seen 

 nests inside a gourd, in a fur cap, in the hollow of a brick, 

 on the side of a bag of oats, and in a piece of lead tubing. 



Once I saw something more remarkable still, in a farm 

 near Avignon. In a large room with a very wide fire- 

 place the soup for the farm-hands and the food for 

 the cattle simmered in a row of pots. The labourers used 

 to come in from the fields to this room, and devour their 

 meal with the silent haste that comes from a keen 

 appetite. To enjoy this half-hour comfortably they 

 would take off their hats and smocks, and hang them on 

 pegs. Short though this meal was, it was long enough to 

 allow the Wasps to take possession of their garments. 

 The inside of a straw hat was recognised as a most useful 

 building-site, the folds of a smock were looked upon as a 

 capital shelter; and the work of building started at once. 

 On rising from the table one of the men would shake his 

 smock, and another his hat, to rid it of the Wasp's nest, 

 which was already the size of an acorn. 



The cook in that farmhouse regarded the Wasps with 

 no friendly eye. They dirtied everything, she said. 



[74] 



