* ARCHITECTURE. 193 
as we ourselves in consequence, are less liable to 
sudden interruption from the wind shaking the nest. 
It is easy to recognize the wasps coming home laden 
with buildmg materials. We may see, at a glance, 
the out-stretched neck with the pellet of gatherings 
between and beneath the mandibles. I have watched 
the process of paper-making very closely in two 
nests of different species which I had for some time 
in a case on the window ledge. By putting dis- 
tinctive marks on the back of the thorax of several 
Wasps, some curious information was obtained as to 
their habits of building. It appeared that when a 
wasp came home laden with building materials she 
did not immediately apply these, but flew into the 
nest for about half a minute, for what purpose I 
could not ascertain. Then emerging she promptly 
set to work. Mounted astride on the edge of one of 
the covering sheets, she pressed her pellet firmly 
down with her fore-legs till it adhered to the edge, 
and, walking backwards, continued this same process 
of pressing and kneading till the pellet was used up, 
and her track was marked by a short dark cord lying 
along the thin edge to which she had fastened it. 
Then she ran forwards, and, as she returned again 
backwards over the same ground, she drew the cord 
through her mandibles, repeating this process two or 
three times till it was flattened out into a little strip 
or ribbon of paper, which only needed drying to be 
undistinguishable from the rest of the sheet to which 
it had been attached. And then she gravely retired 
into the nest again. 
By this means of marking different wasps, it was 
evident that each wasp had nota place of her own 
G 
