I sympathized with her sorrows, while greatly regretting that I could not myself take charge of the place. How gladly I would have left the Pelopæi undisturbed, though they covered every scrap of upholstery with mud; how willingly I would have let them have their way, so that I might learn what prospects there are for a nest if perched on the shifting support of a coat or a curtain! The Mason-bee of the Shrubs, [28] heedless of the storm, builds on a twig; but her edifice, constructed of hard mortar, envelops the support, surrounds it on every side and becomes firmly fixed to it. The nest of the Pelopæus is a mere blob of mud, fastened to its support without any special adhesive preparation. It has no hydraulic cement which sets as soon as used, no foundations welded to the supporting base. How can such a method give proper stability? The nests which I find on the coarse canvas of corn-bags come off at the least shake, though the rough mesh of the stuff makes it easier for them to stick on: what will happen when the nests are placed on a piece of fine calico hanging perpendicularly and often flicked about, if only by the draught? To build on that strikes me as an aberration of instinct on the part of the architect, who has not yet learnt, in spite of the long lesson of the ages, how perilous are certain sites in human habitations. Let us leave the constructor and occupy ourselves with the structure. The materials consist exclusively of wet earth, mud or dirt, picked up wherever the soil possesses the proper degree of humidity. When there is a stream in the neighbourhood, the thin clay of the banks is turned to account. But cement-works of this sort are rare or too far off in my stony region; and it is not in such a building-yard that I most frequently witness the gathering of the materials. I can watch the performance at my leisure without leaving my own garden. When a thin trickle of water runs from morning till evening in the little trenches cut in the vegetable-plots, a few Pelopæi, visitors to the neighbouring farms, soon get wind of the glad event. They come hurrying up to take advantage of the precious layer of mud, a rare discovery in this distressing time of drought. One selects a recently-watered furrow, another prefers to keep on the bank and settle in a work-yard moistened by capillary action. They scrape and skim the gleaming, slimy surface with their mandibles while standing high on their legs, with wings aquiver and their black abdomen upraised on its yellow pedicel. No neat little housewife, with skirts carefully tucked out of the dirt, could be more adept in tackling a job so prejudicial to the cleanliness of her clothes. These mud-gatherers have not an atom of soil upon them, so careful are they to tuck up their skirts in their fashion, that is to say, to keep their whole body out of the way, all but the tips of their legs and the busy points of their mandibles. In this manner a dab of