The Mason-Wasps 



cocoon. I knew nothing of all the rest, 

 when I received from my daughter Claire a 

 bundle of reed-cuttings which filled me with 

 exultation. 



Brought up in a zoological house, the 

 dear child has retained a vivid memory of 

 our evening talks, in which the insect so 

 often cropped up; and her discerning eye 

 is able quickly to distinguish, amid her cas- 

 ual discoveries, anything that may assist me 

 in my studies of instinct. Her country 

 home, in the neighbourhood of Orange, 

 boasts a rustic poultry-house constructed 

 partly of reeds laid in horizontal stages. 

 In the middle of June last year (1889), she 

 noticed, when visiting her Hens, certain 

 Wasps making their way in large and busy 

 numbers into the cut reeds, coming out 

 again and soon returning laden with a load 

 of earth or some malodorous little grub. 

 Her attention once aroused, the rest did not 

 take long: she had discovered a magnificent 

 subject for me to study. That very even- 

 ing I received a bundle of reeds, with a let- 

 ter giving me circumstantial details. 



The Wasp, as Claire called it and as Re- 

 aumur named it of old, when speaking of 

 a species of the same genus but of very dif- 

 ferent habits, the Wasp, so the letter told 

 184 



