62 The Hunting Wasps 



place. On the edge of a high-road were some 

 small heaps of mud, taken from the ditches by 

 the road-mender's shovel. One of these heaps, 

 long ago dried in the sun, formed a cone-shaped 

 mound, resembling a large sugar-loaf twenty 

 inches high. The site seemed to have attracted 

 the Wasps, who had established themselves 

 there in a more populous colony than I have 

 ever since beheld. The cone of dry mud was 

 riddled from top to bottom with burrows, 

 which gave it the appearance of an enormous 

 sponge. On every storey there was a feverish 

 animation, a busy coming and going which re- 

 minded one of the scenes in some great yard 

 when the work is urgent. Crickets were being 

 dragged by the antennae up the slopes of the 

 conical city ; victuals were being stored in the 

 larders of the cells ; dust was pouring from the 

 galleries in process of excavation by the miners ; 

 grimy faces appeared at intervals at the mouths 

 of the tunnels ; there were constant exits and 

 constant entrances ; and now and again a 

 Sphex, in her brief intervals of leisure, would 

 climb to the top of the cone, perhaps to cast 

 a look of satisfaction from this belvedere over 

 the works in general. What a spectacle to 

 tempt me, to make me long to carry the whole 

 city and its inhabitants away with me ! It 

 was useless even to try : the mass was too 



