188 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



vious to the weather. It cannot be urged sufficiently, 

 says Reaumur, that this kind of envelope is indeed of 

 a veritable cardboard, as beautiful as any we know 

 how to make. Reaumur once showed a piece to a 

 cardboard manufacturer, and not the slightest sus- 

 picion of its real nature was suggested to his mind. 

 He turned it over and over, he examined it thoroughly 

 by the touch, he tore it, and after all declared it to 

 be made by one of his own profession, mentioning 

 manufacturers at Orleans as the probable producers. 

 The nests may be conical or cylindrical, they may 

 be straight but more often are somewhat curved, some 

 are almost globe-shaped, but these varieties are of 

 little importance. The length of a well-sized nest is 

 about a foot ; the largest yet discovered was in Ceylon, 

 and measured the astonishing size of six feet. The 

 edifice is pendulous on trees, and attached as it were 

 to a suspensory ring, which embraces the branch, and 

 is tightly impasted round it, or according to West- 

 wood may be large compared with the latter's circum- 

 ference, but it is probably a mistake to say that the 

 nest ever swings freely as on a pivot. The interior 

 consists of circular concave horizontal platforms of 

 cells, their mouths turned downwards, each tier 

 stretching right across like so many floors, and 

 fastened along its entire edge to .the walls. Com- 

 munication is effected by a central opening through 

 the bottom, and through every tier. When the 

 number of inhabitants becomes very great and a 

 fresh series of cells is added, unlike the British wasps 

 who add to their abodes by a preliminary increase of 

 the envelope to admit of extension of the tiers, 



