Insect Geometry 



ality. I could draw you a child's balloon 

 than which none prettier was ever inflated in 

 toyland, or, for that matter, in fairyland; and 

 it would be exactly like the nest of a Median 

 Wasp (Vespa media, De Geer). The per- 

 son who gave me this marvel found it hang- 

 ing from the lower edge of a shutter which 

 was left open for the greater part of the 

 year. 



Possessing liberty of action in all direc- 

 tions, except at the point of contact with 

 the shutter, the Wasp followed the rules of 

 her art without impediment. With a paper 

 of her own manufacture, tough and flexible 

 as the silk papers of China and Japan, she 

 contrived to expand her work into a seg- 

 ment of an ellipsoid, with a cone added to 

 it by means of a gentle curve. A like as- 

 sociation of forms artistically combined is 

 found in the Sacred Beetle's pears. 1 The 

 slender Wasp and the heavy Dung-beetle, 

 employing dissimilar tools and materials, 

 work after the same pattern. 



Ill-defined spiral bands tell us how the 

 Wasp went to work. With her pellet of pa- 

 per-pulp in her mandibles, she moved down- 

 wards in a slanting direction, following the 



1 Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, 

 translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. iv. — 

 Translator's Note, 



227, 



