310 MASONIC WORKERS. 



lodgment, of his retreating form, that our diver is a spider, 

 the diving water-spider* a species of whose habitation and 

 habits you may possibly remember some other particulars as 

 recorded in a certain Episode yclept " the Fresh-water Syren," 

 an imaginary personage sprung from this aquatic Arachne of 

 our streams and ditches, where, shining in its native simpli- 

 city, her silver diving-bell is often to be seen. 



But we must leave, for the present, these aquatic mecha- 

 nisms, though as yet but half examined, that we may bestow 

 a little of our notice upon a few other assembled specimens, 

 first, of the work-animalship, next of the admirably adapted 

 tools employed by insect artificers in their exercise of several 

 crafts wherein they have set us, for ages immemorial, a variety 

 of uncopied patterns. Of their masonry, carpentry, spinning, 

 weaving, and paper-making, we can show you here some pri- 

 mitive specimens either completed or in progress. Let us 

 attend first to the architectural operations of these masonic 

 builders, not working in concert, but each employed on a 

 separate structure. We may mention, by the way, as a fact 

 not bespoken very clearly by their apparel, that each of our 

 ouvriers (more properly ouvrihes) is of the feminine gender. 

 Here is one of them, a sharp, waspish little animal, busied up 

 to her eyes and ears in our own material for building, brick 

 a single brick one being big enough to serve her turn. 

 Chipping away her hardest with a trenchant tool, combining 



* Argyroneta aquatica. 



