ARCHITECTURE. 205 
mucous secretion with which they are worked up 
into a pulp. This mucus, gum, silk, or whatever 
we call it, is, as we have seen, the representative of, 
if not actually identical with, the secretion with 
which the larvee form their cocoons. In many insects 
it is suppressed, in others materially altered, when 
the pupal stage is past: for with the formation of the 
cocoon the necessity for such a secretion commonly 
ceases. In wasps however, with the necessity, it con- 
tinues but little altered for at least a portion of their 
imago life. It resists the action of cold water, other- 
wise every passing shower would injure the coverings 
of the nest. But boiling water or alkaline solutions 
readily dissolve it, and reduce the paper to a pulp. 
This can be re-made into a texture not much unlike the 
coarse paper in which sugar is wrapped, only more 
brittle; or into a papier-mdaché, still more inferior to any 
marketable article. Wasp-paper supplies one of the 
very few instances where the natural is far inferior to 
the artificial product. It could hardly be otherwise, 
made as it is of an inferior staple, and by less efficient 
mechanism. But the paper which would not answer 
our purposes is perfect for all the wasp’s requirements; 
it is just like everything else in the insect economy, 
just what they want and nomore. For Britain, with 
its sun and showers, this slight paper case is quite 
enough to keep out moderate wet and cold, and 
_to let in the air. In the East Indies, where a long 
dry season, uninterrupted by showers, lasting a wasp’s 
life-time, may be looked for, a ruder material is 
often employed: and the great V. cincta builds her 
nest of mud. Not to draw too wide an inference 
from limited opportunities of observation, still I would 
