THE FIRST PAPER-MAKER 159 



offspring. There they lie in their cradles, head 

 downward, crying always for provender, like the 

 daughters of the horse-leech. Forgive her, there- 

 fore, if her temper is sometimes short, and if she 

 resents intrusion upon the strawberry she is cart- 

 ing away to feed her young family by a hasty 

 sting, administered, perhaps, with rather more 

 asperity than a lady should display under trying 

 circumstances. Some of my readers are mothers 

 themselves, and can feel for her. Nor is even 

 this all. The grubs of wasps grow fast in itself 

 a testimonial to the constant care with which a 

 devoted mother feeds and tends them : and even 

 as they grow the poor queen (a queen but in 

 name, and more like a maid-of-all-work in reality) 

 has continually to raise the cell-wall around them. 

 What looked at first like shallow cups, thus grow 

 at last into deep, hollow cells, the walls being 

 raised from time to time by the addition of papery 

 matter, with the growth of the inmates. In this 

 first or foundation-comb the nucleus and original 

 avenue of the nascent city the walls are never 

 carried higher than the height of the larva that 

 inhabits them. As the grub grows, the mother 

 adds daily a course or layer of paper, till the larva 

 reaches its final size, a fat, full grub, ready to 

 undergo its marvellous metamorphosis. Then at 

 last it begins to do some work on its own account : 

 it spins a silky, or cottony, web, with which it 

 covers over the mouth or opening of the cell ; 

 though even here you must remember it derives 

 the material from its own body, and therefore 



