The Mason-Wasps 



plump belly. Next comes the thorax, 

 abounding in muscular tissues, and lastly 

 the legs, dry morsels, but not despised. 

 Everything goes down, from the best to the 

 coarsest; and, when the meal is finished, 

 there is practically nothing left of the whole 

 heap of Spiders. This life of gluttony lasts 

 for eight to ten days. 



The larva then works at its cocoon, 

 which consists at first of a sack of pure, 

 perfectly white silk, an extremely delicate 

 sack, affording little protection to the re- 

 cluse. This is only a woof, destined to be- 

 come a better stuff, not by additional weav- 

 ing, but by the application of a special 

 lacquer. The spinner is a worker in oiled 

 silk. 



In the spinning-mills of the carnivorous 

 Wasps, two methods of manufacture are 

 employed to give the silken fabric greater 

 toughness. On the one hand, the fabric 

 is encrusted with numerous grains of 

 sand, which produces an almost mineral shell 

 wherein the silk has no other function than 

 to serve as a cement for the stony materials. 

 That is how the Bembeces, the Stizi, the 

 Tachytes and the Palari work. On the 

 other hand, the larva elaborates in its 



