326 MANUFACTURES OF PAPER. 



observation, the progress of its composition. He saw on his 

 window-frame a large wasp a mother wasp of the social or 

 common species an individual such as is often to be seen, in 

 spring especially, on posts and rails and palings, busily em- 

 ployed, as his was, in gnawing into the wood. He saw her 

 detach a bundle of fibres, not to swallow but to collect into 

 a mass with her feet, and then, having caught her, he found 

 these fibres to be thin as a hair and about the tenth of an 

 inch long, not yet either moistened with gluten or rolled into 

 a ball. These, as he discovered, were subsequent operations; 

 and when assiduously performed, the accomplished paper- 

 maker had only to spread out her sheets and employ them for 

 their designed purposes, the lining of her nest and the con- 

 struction of her cells. 



But this, our insect paper-maker, with all her skill, is beaten 

 hollow in her craft by a foreign artizan, a wasp of Cayenne, 

 who makes a water-proof tree-suspended nest of card or paste- 

 board, "so smooth, so strong, so uniform in its texture, and so 

 white, that the most skilful manufacturer might be proud of 

 the work." Here a gem of our collection is one of these 

 superlative specimens of papetisne, the last we can now exa- 

 mine of insect manufacture. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, The bell rings to announce the 

 exhibition of objects in our powerful microscope. Those 

 selected for to-day's observation are the tools made use of in 

 production (with many more) of the structures and fabrics we 



