A circular fence, we were saying, is begun on the bare rock. Before the mortar sets, which does not take long, the mason, as the work advances, sticks a few stones into the soft mass. She dabs them half-way into the cement, so as to leave them jutting out to a large extent, without penetrating to the inside, where the wall must remain smooth for the sake of the larva’s comfort. If necessary, she adds a little plaster, to tone down any inner excrescences. The solidly-embedded stonework alternates with the pure mortarwork, of which each fresh course receives its facing of tiny encrusted pebbles. As the edifice is raised, the builder slopes the construction a little towards the centre and fashions the curve which will give the spherical shape. We employ arched centerings to support the masonry of a dome while building; the Eumenes, more daring than we, erects her cupola without any scaffolding. 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. Such is the appearance of the edifice when the cell stands alone; but the Wasp nearly always fixes other domes against her first, to the number of five or six or more. This shortens the labour by allowing her to use the same partition for two adjoining rooms. The original elegant symmetry is lost and the whole now forms a cluster which, at first sight, might be merely a clod of dry mud, sprinkled with little pebbles. But examine the shapeless mass more closely; and we perceive the number of chambers composing the habitation with the funnelled mouths, each quite distinct and each furnished with its gravel stopper set in the cement.