846 INSECTA—WASP. 
on the side ofa bank, to avoid the rain or water that would otherwise annoy 
them. When they havechosen a proper place, they go to work with won- 
derfui assiduity. Their first labor is to enlarge and widen the hole, taking 
away the earth, and carrying it off to some distance. To prevent the earth 
from falling down and crushing their rising city into ruin, they make a sort 
of roof with their gluey substance, to which they begin to fix the rudiments 
of their building, working from the top downwards, as if they were hanging 
a bell, which, however, at length, they close up at the bottom. The materi- 
als with which they build their nests, are bits of wood and glue. The wood 
they get where they can, from the rails and posts which they meet with in 
the fields, and elsewhere. These they saw and divide into a multitude of 
small fibres, of which they take up little bundles in their claws, letting fall 
upon them a few drops of gluey matter, with which their bodies are pro- 
vided, by the help of which they knead the whole composition into a paste, 
which serves them in their future building. When they have returned 
with this to the nest, they stick their load of paste on that part where they 
make their walls and partitions; they tread it close with their feet, and 
trowel it with their trunks, still going backwards as they work. Having 
repeated this operation three or four times, the composition is at length 
flatted out until it becomes a small leaf of a gray color, much finer than 
paper, and of a pretty firm texture. This done, the same wasp returns to 
the field to collect a second load of paste, repeating the same several times, 
placing layer upon layer, and strengthening every partition in proportion to 
the wants or convenience of the general fabric. Other working wasps come 
quickly after to repeat the same operation, laying more leaves upon the 
former, till at length, after much toil, they have finished the large roof which 
is to secure them from the tumbling in of the earth. This dome being 
finished, they make another entrance to their habitation, designed either for 
letting in the warmth of the sun, or for escaping in case one door be invaded 
by plunderers. Certain, however, it is, that by one of these they always 
enter, by the other they sally forth to their toil; each hole being so small 
that they can pass but one ata time. The walls being thus composed, and 
the whole somewhat of the shape of a pear, they labor at their cells, which 
they compose of the same paper-like substance that goes to the formation of 
the outside works. Their combs differ from these of bees, not less in the 
composition than the position which they are always seen to retain. The 
honeycomb of the bee is edgewise with respect to the hive; that of the 
wasp is flat, and the mouth of every cell opens downwards. . Thus is their 
habitation contrived story above story, supported by several rows of pillars 
which give firmness to the whole building, while the upper story is flat- 
roofed, and as smooth as the pavement of a room laid with squares of mar- 
ble. The wasps can freely walk upon these stories between the pillars to 
do whatever their wants require. The pillars are very hard and compact 
being larger at each end than in the middle, not much unlike the columns 
