304 The Htmting Wasps 



seems rather the product of some elaborate 

 manufacture than that of a grub. To any one 

 unacquainted with the secret, the cocoons which 

 I had built with blotting-sand might have been 

 jewels of some unknown workmanship, great 

 beads studded with golden spots on a lapis- 

 lazuli ground, destined to form the necklace of 

 a Polynesian belle. 



