The Mason-Wasps 



a dry bramble-stem, obtains, for the use of 

 her family, a long sheath, which she sub- 

 divides into stories; a fourth bores a gallery 

 in the dead wood of some fig-tree; a fifth 

 digs herself a shaft in the soil of a foot- 

 path and surmounts it with a cylindrical, 

 vertical kerb. All these industries are 

 worth studying, but I should have preferred 

 to discover that which Reaumur and Dufour 

 have rendered famous. 



On a steep bank of red clay, I at length 

 recognize, in no great profusion, the signs 

 of a village of Odyneri. Here are the 

 characteristic chimneys mentioned by the 

 two historians, that is to say, the curved 

 tubes, with their guilloche-work, that hang 

 at the entrance to the dwelling. The bank 

 is exposed to the heat of the noonday sun. 

 A little tumbledown wall surmounts it; be- 

 hind is a dense screen of pines. The whole 

 forms a warm refuge, such as the Wasp re- 

 quires for setting up house. Moreover, 

 we are now in the second fortnight of the 

 month of May, which is just the working- 

 season, according to the masters. The out- 

 side architecture, the site and the period all 

 agree with what Reaumur and Leon Dufour 

 have told us. Have I really chanced upon 

 one or other of their Odyneri? This re- 

 32 



