TJic Humming Bird. 53 



She carries the fibre home and then turns it into paper- 

 pulp ; for it was Mrs. Wasp who gave us our first lesson in 

 paper-making. 



All the odd bits of vegetable matter which have been 

 collected are mashed most carefully, most thoroughly, with a 

 sticky secretion from her mouth, and are then plastered to- 

 gether into a thin film of stucco, which looks for all the world 

 like some crumpled sheet of tissue. 



y\ variable number of cones are connected togfether with 

 scaffolding, made of this papier mâché, and then a strong 

 external wall is built, having two doors. The next operation 

 is to form a pillar riveted to the roof of the cavern, and then 

 the topsy-turvey lady, whose sting is in her tail, not in her 

 mouth, begins at the roof and builds gradually down towards 

 the foundations. 



The energetic female does not complete the building of 

 her inimitable walled citadel without assistance ; and feeling 

 the want of ' fellow workers, she sets to and manufactures 

 some for her own purposes. 



Every cell she furnishes with an ^%%-: which, as time goes 

 on, becomes converted into a grub. The maternal duties now 

 interfere considerably with the professional ones, and bring 

 the building operations to a standstill. The queen-builder 

 turns huntress. She leaves her little colony to chase and 

 capture luckless flies and other insects, which she forthwith 

 churns into a palatable mess and retails to the little grubs. 



As they are fed up in this way several times a day the 

 ugly grublings soon begin to grow in breadth and stature, 

 until they suddenly burst forth into full-blown wasps, and 

 immediatelv be^in to relieve their mother of her multitudinous 

 duties. When they grow old enough they take the building 

 operations entirely out of her hands and finish the great work 

 she began so gamely. 



These new-comers are neither masculine nor feminine, 

 but neuter. They are, above all things, workers, and the 

 mother does not let them forget it either. She allows no 

 lazying. She sends them out into all parts of the world to 

 collect food for the younger generations of grublings, and it 

 is when they feel too lazy to suck the flowers and gather 

 honey from the fields that they come into our rooms, drive us 

 from our dinners, and browse on the jam-tarts and the fruit. 



As time goes on this champion mother produces more and 

 more grubs, and these in their turn have to build for their 

 prospective brothers, and so the paper mansion grows bigger 

 every day. 



