156 
STRANGE DWELLINGS . 
He was then thirty-four years of age, and being a man of 
great energy, set to work out the construction of a map of 
Paraguay. This was a Herculean task, occupying thirteen 
years in its completion, and forcing De Azara to explore regions 
before unknown, and to trust himself to the native tribes who 
had never before seen the face of a white man. While en- 
gaged in this occupation, he made a vast collection of notes 
upon the native tribes of Paraguay, as well as upon the beasts, 
birds, insects, and vegetation, together with an account of the 
method by which the Jesuit missionaries established themselves 
and ruled the country for many years. 
After his return to Europe, in 1801, he published the account 
of his travels, and met with the usual fate of those who first 
penetrate into unknown countries. His statements were not I 
believed, and among those which raised the greatest discredit 
was an account of certain wasps which made honey. Some per- 
sons said that the whole statement was a fabrication, and others 
remarked that the honey-making insects were simply bees which 
De Azara had erroneously considered to be wasps. Time, how- j 
ever, had its usual effect, and De Azara has been proved to be 
perfectly trustworthy in his remarks. The two specimens which 
are represented in the illustration are now in the British Museum, 
and afford tangible proofs that De Azara was right and his 
detractors wrong. 
The right-hand figure represents the nest of a curious insect, 1 
named by Mr. Adam White Myrapetra scute/laris . 
On looking at the exterior of the nest, our attention is at 
once excited by the material of which it is made, and the vast 
number of sharp tubercular projections which stud its surface. 
In colour it is dark, dull, blackish-brown, and its texture some- 
what resembles very rough papier-mache . On examining it with 
a pocket magnifier a matted structure is plainly visible, as if it 
were made of short vegetable fibres. This appearance accords 
with the accounts of the natives, who say that it is made from 
the dung of the capincha, one of the aquatic cavies of tropical 
America. 
