THE WASP, 87 



crevice to which she comes. At last she finds a burrow made 

 by a field mouse, or perhaps strikes upon the deserted tunnel 

 of some large burrowing insect, enters it, stays a long while 

 within, comes out again and fiisses about outside, enters again, 

 and seems to make up her mind. In fact, she is house-hunting, 

 and all her movements are very like those of a careful matron 

 selecting a new home. 



Having thus settled upon a convenient spot, she proceeds to 

 form a chamber, at some depth from the surface, breaking away 

 the soil, and carrying it out piece by piece. When she has 

 thus fashioned the chamber to her mind — for she has a mind — 

 she flies off again, and makes her way to an old wooden fence 

 which has stood for many years, and which, although not rotten, 

 is perfectly seasoned. On this she settles, and, after running 

 up and down for a little time, she fixes upon some spot, and 

 begins to gnaw away the fibres, working with all her might, so 

 eagerly engaged that even were we not invisible we might stand 

 by and watch her proceedings. At last, she has gathered a 

 little bundle of fibres, which she gnaws and works about until 

 she reduces them to a kind of pulp, and then flies back to the 

 burrow. 



She now runs up the side of the chamber, and clings to its 

 roof with the two last pairs of legs, while with the first pair, 

 aided by her jaws, she fixes the woody pulp on the roof, knead- 

 ing it until it forms a kind of little pillar. Another and another 

 supply is brought, until this pillar which is pendent from the 

 roof, like a papier-macht stalactite, is completed. The Wasp 

 now begins to form the comb, and at the end of the pillar she 

 places three very shallow cells, of a cup-like shape, not hexa- 

 gonal, as are the completed cells. In each of these little cups 

 she deposits an egg, and then constructs a roof over them, 

 made from the same material as the cells, but laid in a difl"erent 

 manner, the length of the fibres being nearly at right angles to 

 the centre of the proposed comb. More cells are then added, 

 eggs are laid in them, and the roof extended over them. 



The eggs that were laid in the first three cells are now 



