This cursed ground, which no one would have had at a gift to sow with a pinch of turnip-seed, is an earthly paradise for the Bees and the Wasps.

Its mighty growth of thistles and centauries draws them all to me from everywhere around.

Never, in my insect-hunting memories, have I seen so large a population at a single spot; all the trades have made it their rallying-point.

Here come hunters of every kind of game, builders in clay, weavers of cotton goods, collectors of pieces cut from a leaf or the petals of a flower, architects in paste-board, plasterers mixing mortar, carpenters boring wood, miners digging underground galleries, workers handling goldbeater's skin and many more.
Who is this one?
An Anthidium.

(A Cotton-bee .-- Translator's Note.) She scrapes the cobwebby stalk of the yellow-flowered centaury and gathers a ball of wadding which she carries off proudly in the tips of her mandibles.