CHAPTER VI 



A MASON-WASP 



I 

 HER CHOICE OF A BUILDING-SITE 



OF the various insects that like to make their 

 home in our houses, certainly the most inter- 

 esting, for her beautiful shape, her curious 

 manners, and her wonderful nest, is a certain Wasp 

 called the Pelopaeus. She is very little known, even to 

 the people by whose fireside she lives. This is owing 

 to her quiet, peaceful ways; she is so very retiring that 

 her host is nearly always ignorant of her presence. It 

 is easy for noisy, tiresome, unpleasant persons to make 

 themselves famous. I will try to rescue this modest 

 creature from her obscurity. 



The Pelopaeus is an extremely chilly mortal. She 

 pitches her tent under the kindly sun that ripens the 

 olive and prompts the Cicada's song; and even then she 

 needs for her family the additional warmth to be found 

 in our dwellings. Her usual refuge is the peasant's 

 lonely cottage, with its old fig-tree shading the well in 

 front of the door. She chooses one exposed to all the 



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