120 HISTORY OF 



the arth from falling down and crushing their 

 rising city into ruin, they make a sort of roof with 

 their gluey substance, to which they begin to fix 

 the rudiments of their building, working from the 

 top downwards, as if they were hanging a bell, 

 which, however, at length they close at the bot- 

 tom. The materials with which they build their 

 nests are bits of wood and glue. The wood they 

 get where they can, from the rails and posts 

 which they meet with in the fields and elsewhere. 

 These they saw and divide into a multitude of 

 small fibres, of which they take up little bundles 

 in their claws, letting fall upon them a few drops 

 of gluey matter with which their bodies are pro- 

 vided, by the help of which they knead the whole 

 composition into a paste, which serves them in 

 their future building. When they have returned 

 with this to their nest, they stick their load of 

 paste on that part where they make their walls 

 and partitions ; they tread it close with their feet, 

 and trowel it with their trunks, still going back- 

 wards as they work. Having repeated this opera- 

 tion three or four times, the composition is at 

 length flatted out until it becomes a small leaf of 

 a grey colour, much finer than paper, and of a 

 pretty firm texture. This done, the same wasp 

 returns to the field to collect a second load of 

 paste, repeating the same several times, placing 

 layer upon layer, and strengthening every parti- 

 tion in proportion to the wants or convenience 

 of tVe general fabric. Other working wasps 

 come quickly after to repeat the same operation, 

 laying more leaves upon the former, till at length, 



