Mason- Wasps. 23 



east wall of a house at Lee, in Kent, very busy in excavating 

 a hole in one of the bricks, about five feet from the ground. 

 Whether there might not have been an accidental hole in the 

 brick before the wasp commenced her labours, is unknown, 

 as she had made considerable progress in the work when 

 first observed : but the brick was one of the hardest of the 

 yellow sort made in this neighbourhood. The most remark- 

 able circumstance in the process of hewing into the brick 

 was the care of the insect in removing to a distance the 

 fragments which from time to time she succeeded in detach- 

 ing. It did not appear to suit her design to wear down the 

 brick, particle by particle, as the furniture beetle (Anobium 



Odynerus. Natural size. 



pertinax) does in making its pin-hole galleries in old wood. 

 Our wasp- architect, on the contrary, by means of her strong 

 tranchant-tooihed jaws ? severed a piece usually about the 

 bigness of a mustard-seed. It might have been supposed 

 that these fragments would have been tossed out of the hole 

 as the work proceeded, without further concern ; as the mole 

 tosses above ground the earth which has been cleared 

 out of its subterranean gallery. The wasp was of a different 

 opinion ; for it was possible that a heap of brick chips, at the 

 bottom of the wall, might lead to the discovery of her nest 

 by some of her enemies, particularly by one or other of the 

 numerous tribe of what are called ichneumon-fties. This 

 name is given to them, from the similarity of their habit of 

 destroying eggs, to that of the little animal which proves so 

 formidable an enemy to the multiplication of the crocodile of 

 Egypt. They may be also denominated cwc/coo-flies, because, 

 like that bird, they thrust their egg into the nest of another 

 species. These flies are continually prowling about and 

 prying into every corner, to find, by stealth, a nidus for their 

 eggs. It might have been some such consideration as this 



