THE FIRST PAPER-MAKER 167 



this strange, eventful history. We do not love 

 wasps ; yet so sad a catastrophe as the end of the 

 nest cannot fail to affect the imagination. As soon 

 as the young queens and males have quitted the 

 combs, the whole bustling city, till now so busy, 

 seems to lose heart at once and to realise that it is 

 doomed to speedy extinction. Winter is coming 

 on, when no worker wasp can live. So the com- 

 munity proceeds with one accord to commit com- 

 munal suicide. The workers, who till now have 

 tended the young grubs with sisterly care, drag 

 the remaining larvae ruthlessly from their cells, as 

 if conscious that they can never rear this last 

 brood, and carry them in their mouths and legs 

 outside the nest. There they take them to some 

 distance from the door, and then drop them on 

 the ground to die, as if to put them out of 

 their misery. As for the workers themselves, they 

 return to the nest and starve to death or die 

 of cold ; or else they crawl about aimlessly out- 

 side in a distracted way till the end overtakes 

 them. 



There is something really pathetic in this sudden 

 and meaningless downfall of a whole vast cityful ; 

 something strange and weird in this constantly re- 

 peated effort to build up and people a great com- 

 munity, only to see it fall to pieces hopelessly and 

 helplessly at the first touch of winter. Yet how 

 does it differ, after all, from our human empires, 

 save in the matter of duration ? We raise them 

 with infinite pains only to see them fall apart, like 

 Rome or Babylon. 



