r56 STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



He was then thirty-four years of age, and being a man of 

 great energy, set to work out the construction of a map of 

 Paraguay. This was a Herculean task, occupying thirteen 

 years in its completion, and forcing De Azara to explore regions 

 before unknown, and to trust himself to the native tribes who 

 had never before seen the face of a white man. While en- 

 gaged in this occupation, he made a vast collection of notes 

 upon the native tribes of Paraguay, as well as upon the beasts, 

 birds, insects, and vegetation, together with an account of the 

 method by which the Jesuit missionaries established themselves 

 and ruled the country for many years. 



After his return to Europe, in 1801, he published the account 

 of his travels, and met with the usual fate of those who first 

 penetrate into unknown countries. His statements were not 

 believed, and among those which raised the greatest discredit 

 was an account of certain wasps which made honey. Some per- 

 sons said that the whole statement was a fabrication, and others 

 remarked that the honey-making insects were simply bees which 

 De Azara had erroneously considered to be wasps. Time, how- 

 ever, had its usual effect, and De Azara has been proved to be 

 perfectly trustworthy in his remarks. The two specimens which 

 are represented in the illustration are now in the British Museum, 

 and afford tangible proofs that De Azara was right and his 

 detractors wrong. 



The right-hand figure represents the nest of a curious insect, 

 named by Mr. Adam White Myrapetra scutellaris. 



On looking at the exterior of the nest, our attention is at 

 once excited by the material of which it is made, and the vast 

 number of sharp tubercular projections which stud its surface. 

 In colour it is dark, dull, blackish-brown, and its texture some* 

 what resembles very vow^ papier-mache. On examining it with 

 a pocket magnifier a matted structure is plainly visible, as if it 

 were made of short vegetable fibres. This appearance accords 

 with the accounts of the natives, who say that it is made from 

 the dung of the capincha, one of the aquatic cavies of tropical 

 America. 



