But she does not know how to get out, though the difficulty remains precisely the same. Like the Turkey of the American naturalist, she is defeated by this problem: to recognize as good for going out the road which was recognized as good for going in. Impatient to escape, both bird and insect rush frantically to and fro, exhausting themselves in their striving towards the light; and neither pays any attention to the underground passage, which would so readily give them their liberty. Neither of them thinks of it, because to do so would require a little reflection and would thwart the impulse of the moment, which is to flee far into the daylight. Wasps and Turkeys alike perish, rather than improve the present by the lessons of the past, when called upon to modify their usual tactics be it ever so slightly. The Wasp has been extolled for inventing the round Wasps’-nest and the hexagonal cell, that is to say, for rivalling our geometricians in solving the problem of the forms which are most economical of space and material. Men attribute to her ingenuity the magnificent discovery of the surrounding wrapper cushioned with air, than which our own physicists could imagine no better provision against cold. And these superb inventions are supposed to have been achieved quite simply by the clumsy intellect which is unable to use an entrance-door as an exit-door! Such marvels inspired by such ineptitude leave me profoundly incredulous. Actions of this kind have a higher origin. We will now open the thick envelope of the nest. The interior is occupied by the combs, or disks of cells, lying horizontally and fastened one to the other by solid pillars. The number varies. Towards the end of the season it may be as many as ten, or even more. The orifice of the cells is on the lower surface. In this strange world, the young grow, sleep and receive their food head downwards. For service-purposes, open spaces, with rows of connecting pillars, divide the various stories. Here is a continual coming and going of nurses, busily attending to their grubs. Lateral doorways, between the outer envelope and the stack of combs, give easy access to every part. Lastly, on one side of the wrapper, the open gate of the city stands, devoid of architectural adornment, a modest aperture lost among the thin flakes of the surrounding surface. Facing it is the underground vestibule leading to the outer world.