Thk First Paper-Maker 167 



this stranj^e, eventful history. We do not love 

 wasps ; yet so sad a catastrophe as the end of the 

 nest cannot fail to affect the imajijination. As soon 

 as the youn<^ queens and males have quitted the 

 combs, the whole bustliii^ city, till now so busy, 

 seems to lose heart at once and to realise that it is 

 doomed to speedy extinction. Winter is cominj* 

 on, when no worker wasp can live. So the com- 

 munity proceeds with one accord to commit com- 

 numal suicide. The workers, who till now have 

 tended the yt)un^ ^rubs with sisterly care, draj^ 

 the remaining larv.c ruthlessly from their cells, as 

 if conscious that they can never rear this last 

 brood, and carry them in their mouths and lej^s 

 outside the nest. There thev take them to some 

 distance from the door, and then drop them on 

 the j^round to die, as if to put them out of 

 their misery. As for the workers themselves, they 

 return to the nest and starve to death or die 

 of cold ; or else they crawl about aimlessly out- 

 sivle in a distracted way till the end overtakes 

 them. 



There is somethinj^ reallv pathetic in this sudden 

 and moiip.inj^less downfall of a whole vast cityful ; 

 somethinj^ strange and weird in this constantly re- 

 peated effort to build up and people a j^ieat com- 

 munity, only to see it fall to pieces hopelessly and 

 helplessly at the first touch of winter. Yet how 

 does it differ, after all, from our human empires, 

 save in the matter of duration ? Wc raise them 

 with infinite pains only to see them fall apart, like 

 Home or BabyU)n. 



