STARTING THE NEST 99 



true paper, a paper that man finally learned 

 to make, in essentially the same way that 

 the wasp makes it. 



For paper is only vegetable fibre reduced 

 to pulp and pressed into sheets. 



Having gathered her little ball of wood- 

 fibre, and reduced it to a pulp of proper 

 consistency by chewing and moistening 

 with sticky saliva, Vespa first builds a 

 slender stem or support for her future 

 home. 



To the end of this she hangs a little 

 cluster of three or more hexagonal cells, 

 also of paper. 



She begins at the roof and builds down, ^v- 

 suspending her habitation from above, ! 

 instead of building it on foundations ^^^ 

 that rest on the earth. ^^ 



She begins her first cell, but does not 

 finish it before she starts another, and 

 when she has a cluster of three half- 

 finished cells she lays an egg in the first 

 one, and goes on building. As fast as the 



