The Mason-Wasps

THE MASON-WASPS
BOOKS BY J. HENRI FABRE
THE MASON-WASPS
BY J. HENRI FABRE TRANSLATED BY Alexander Teixeira de Mattos FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON
NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1919
Copyright, 1919 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
This is the second volume on Wasps in the Collected Edition of Fabre’s Souvenirs entomologiques . The first of these was The Hunting Wasps ; and the present volume is somewhat wilfully entitled, for all Wasps hunt in varying degrees, if not on their own behalf, at least on that of their young. My object, however, was to bring together all the essays treating of those Wasps who actually build homes or nests, as distinct from burrows. The last book on Wasps will be called More Hunting Wasps and will be issued towards the end of the series.
My thanks are due to the late Miss Frances Rodwell and to my friend Bernard Miall, both of whom have been of great assistance to me in preparing my translation.
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
E. pomiformis is much more common and is comparatively indifferent to the nature of the foundation on which she constructs her cell. She builds on walls, on isolated stones, on the inner wooden surface of half-closed shutters; or else she adopts an aerial base, the slender twig of a shrub, the withered sprig of a plant of some sort. Any form of support serves her purpose. Nor does she trouble about shelter. Less chilly than her African cousin, she does not shun the unprotected spaces exposed to every wind that blows.
A round opening is contrived at the top; and above this opening rises a funnelled mouth built of pure cement. It might be the graceful neck of some Etruscan vase. When the cell is victualled and the egg laid, the mouth is closed with a cement plug; and in this plug is set a little pebble, one alone, no more: the ritual never varies. This work of rustic architecture has naught to fear from the inclemencies of the weather; it does not yield to the pressure of the fingers; it resists the knife that attempts to remove it without breaking it. Its nipple-shape and the bits of gravel wherewith it bristles all over the outside remind one of certain cromlechs of olden time, of certain tumuli whose domes are strewn with Cyclopean blocks of stone.