318 INSECT CARPENTRY. 



in, and, as lie thus thickens his bit of new wall, we gradually 

 lose sight, behind it, both of the builder and his operations ; 

 but we can guess at their conclusion, for, having thus made 

 whole again, externally, his damaged domicile, there is little 

 doubt but that he completes it within by restoration also of 

 its soft and silken tapestry. 



But, in truth, we must have done with masons, be they 

 wasps, bees, ants, or caterpillars, or we shall have to overpass 

 entirely that department of our gallery allotted to the labours, 

 and exhibiting the works, of those amongst the same insects 

 which are used to exercise the craft of carpentry. Various 

 of them are here employed as in their native workshops, fur- 

 nished "with all appliances and means " for their ingenious 

 operations ; but the progress of these we have not time to 

 follow, so must be content, for the present, with inspection of 

 some articles or architectures, the produce of their tools 

 more properly their tool that compound chisel, plane, and 

 forceps, all (as in the masons) united in the jaws or teeth of 

 our carpenter artisans. As with the masons, also, all these 

 carpenters amongst wasps, bees, and ants are females; all 

 work under the prompting of maternal love, or an affection 

 of resembling kind ; their buildings are all nests ; their 

 chambers nurseries for the protection of, and furnished usually 

 with supplies for, their respective young. 



Not as one of the most perfect, but as one of the simplest 

 of these collected specimens, let us look, first, at this nest of a 



