The Book Of Curiosities Part 24

What follows is princ.i.p.ally abridged from Huber, who in many instances is more correct than Hunter.--A hive contains three kind of bees. 1. A single queen bee, distinguishable by the great length of her body, and the proportional shortness of her wings. 2. Working-bees, female non-breeders, or, as they were formerly called, neuters, to the amount of many thousands; these are the smallest bees in the hive, and are armed with a sting. 3. Drones, or males, to the number perhaps of fifteen hundred or two thousand; these are larger than the workers, and of a dark colour; they make a great noise in flying, and have no sting. The whole labour of the community is performed by the workers: they elaborate the wax, and construct the cells; they collect the honey, and feed the brood. The drones, numerous as they are, serve no other purpose than to ensure the increase of the hive, and are regularly ma.s.sacred by the workers at the beginning of autumn.

It is the office of the queen-bee to lay the eggs. These remain about three days in the cells before they are hatched. A small white worm then makes its appearance, (called indifferently, worm, larva, maggot, or grub;) this larva is fed with honey for some days, and then changes into a nymph or pupa. After pa.s.sing a certain period in this state, it comes forth a perfect winged insect.

M. Huber, after noticing the propagation of this industrious race, next states the accidental discovery of the very singular and unexpected consequences which follow from r.e.t.a.r.ding the impregnation of the queen-bee beyond the twentieth or twenty-first day of her life. In the natural order of things, or when impregnation is not r.e.t.a.r.ded, the queen begins to lay the eggs of workers forty-six hours after, and she continues for the subsequent eleven months to lay none but these; "and it is only after this period, that a considerable and uninterrupted laying of the eggs of drones commences. When, on the contrary, impregnation is r.e.t.a.r.ded after the twenty-eighth day, the queen begins, from the forty-sixth hour, to lay the eggs of drones; and she lays no other kind during her whole life." It would be tedious to detail the experiments; they were numerous, and the results uniform. "I occupied myself (says M. Huber) the remainder of 1787, and the two subsequent years, with experiments on r.e.t.a.r.ded fecundation, and had constantly the same results." It is undoubted, therefore, that when the course of natural instinct is r.e.t.a.r.ded beyond the twentieth day, only an imperfect generation is produced; as the queen, instead of laying the eggs of workers and of males equally, will lay those of males only.

This discovery is entirely M. Huber's own: and so difficult is it to offer any plausible explanation of the fact, that he himself has scarcely attempted it.

The working-bees had been for ages considered as entirely dest.i.tute of s.e.x; and hence, in the writings of many authors, they are denominated neuters, but from the experiments of Schirach and Huber, it seems now to be clearly ascertained, that the workers are really of the female s.e.x.

M. Huber confirms the curious discovery of M. Schirach, that when bees are by any accident deprived of their queen, they have the power of selecting one or two grubs of workers, and of converting them into queens; and that they accomplish this by greatly enlarging the cells of those selected larvae, by supplying them more copiously with food, and with that of a more pungent sort than is given to the common larvae.

M. Huber gives the following curious account of the manner in which bees proceed in forming capacious cells for the workers' grubs destined to royalty.--"Bees soon become sensible of having lost their queen, and in a few hours commence the labour necessary to repair their loss. First they select the young common worms, which the requisite treatment is to convert into queens, and immediately begin with enlarging the cells where they are deposited. Their mode of proceeding is curious; and the better to ill.u.s.trate it, I shall describe the labour bestowed on a single cell, which will apply to all the rest containing worms destined for queens.

Having chosen a worm, they sacrifice three of the contiguous cells; next they supply it with food, and raise a cylindrical enclosure around, by which the cell becomes a perfect tube, with a rhomboidal bottom; for the parts forming the bottom are left untouched. If the bees damaged it, they would lay open three corresponding cells on the opposite surface of the comb, and consequently destroy their worms, which would be an unnecessary sacrifice, and nature has opposed it. Therefore, leaving the bottom rhomboidal, they are satisfied with raising a cylindrical tube around the worm, which, like the other cells in the comb, are horizontal. But this habitation remains suitable to the worm called to the royal state, only during the first three days of its existence: another situation is requisite for the other two days it is a worm. During that time, though so small a portion of its life, it must inhabit a cell nearly of a pyramidical figure, and hanging perpendicularly. The workers, therefore gnaw away the cells surrounding the cylindrical tube, mercilessly sacrifice their worms, and use the wax in constructing a new pyramidical tube, which they solder at right angles to the first, and work it downwards. The diameter of this pyramid decreases insensibly from the base, which is very wide, to the point. In proportion as the worm grows, the bees labour in extending the cell, and bring food, which they place before its mouth, and near its body, forming a kind of cord around it. The worm, which can move only in a spiral direction, turns incessantly to take the food before its head: it insensibly descends, and at length arrives at the orifice of the cell. Now is the time of transformation to a nymph. As any further care is unnecessary, the bees close the cell with a peculiar substance appropriated for it, and there the worm undergoes both its metamorphoses."

M. Huber relates some experiments which confirm the singular discovery of M. Riems, concerning common working bees that are capable of laying eggs,--which, we may remark, is certainly a most convincing proof of their being of the female s.e.x. Eggs were observed to increase in number daily, in a hive in which there were no queens of the usual appearance; but small queens considerably resemble workers, and to discriminate them, required minute inspection. "My a.s.sistant," (says M. Huber,) "then offered to perform an operation that required both courage and patience, and which I could not resolve to suggest, though the same expedient had occurred to myself. He proposed to examine each bee in the hive separately, to discover whether some small queen had not insinuated herself among them, and escaped our first researches. It was necessary, therefore, to seize every one of the bees, notwithstanding their irritation, and to examine their specific character with the utmost care. This my a.s.sistant undertook, and executed with great address. Eleven days were employed in it; and, during all that time, he scarcely allowed himself any relaxation but what the relief of his eyes required. He took every bee in his hand; he attentively examined the trunk, the hind limbs, and the sting; and he found that there was not one without the characteristics of the common bee, that is, the little basket on the hind legs, the long trunk, and the straight sting."

When a supernumerary queen is produced in a hive, or is introduced into it in the course of experiment, either she or the rightful owner soon perishes. The German naturalists, Schirach and Riems, imagined that the working bees a.s.sailed the stranger, and stung her to death. Reaumur considered it as more probable, that the sceptre was made to depend on the issue of a single combat between the claimants; and this conjecture is verified by the observations of Huber. The same hostility towards rivals, and destructive vengeance against royal cells, animates all queens, whether they be virgins, or in a state of impregnation, or mothers of numerous broods. The working bees, it may here be remarked, remain quiet spectators of the destruction, by the first-hatched queen, of the remaining royal cells; they approach only to share in the plunder presented by their havock-making mistress, greedily devouring any food found at the bottom of the cells, and even sucking the fluid from the abdomen of the nymphs before they toss out the carcase.

The following fact, connected with this subject, is one of the most curious perhaps in the whole history of this wonderful insect. Whenever the workers perceive that there are two rival queens in the hive, numbers of them crowd around each; they seem to be perfectly aware of the approaching deadly conflict, and willing to prompt their Amazonian chieftains to the battle; for as often as the queens shew a disinclination to fight, or seem inclined to recede from each other, or to fly off, the bees immediately surround and detain them; but when either combatant shews a disposition to approach her antagonist, all the bees forming the cl.u.s.ters instantly give way, to allow her full liberty for the attack. It seems strange that those bees, who in general shew so much anxiety about the safety of their queen, should, in particular circ.u.mstances, oppose her preparations to avoid impending danger,--should seem to promote the battle, and to excite the fury of the combatants.

When a queen is removed from a hive, the bees do not immediately perceive it; they continue their labours, "watch over their young, and perform all their ordinary occupations. But, in a few hours, agitation ensues; all appears a scene of tumult in the hive. A singular humming is heard; the bees desert their young, and rush over the surface of the combs with a delirious impetuosity." They have now evidently discovered that their sovereign is gone; and the rapidity with which the bad news spreads through the hive, to the opposite side of the combs, is very remarkable.

On replacing the queen in the hive, tranquillity is almost instantly restored. The bees, it is worthy of notice, recognize the individual person of their own queen. If another be palmed upon them, they seize and surround her, so that she is either suffocated, or perishes by hunger; for it is very remarkable, that the workers are never known to attack a queen bee with their stings. If, however, more than eighteen hours have elapsed before the stranger queen be introduced, she has some chance to escape: the bees at first seize and confine her, but less rigidly; and they soon begin to disperse, and at length leave her to reign over a hive, in which she was at first treated as a prisoner. If twenty-four hours have elapsed, the stranger will be well received from the first, and at once admitted to the sovereignty of the hive. In short, it appears that the bees, when deprived of their queen, are thrown into great agitation; that they wait about twenty hours, apparently in hopes of her return; but that, after this interregnum, the agitation ceases, and they set about supplying their loss by beginning to construct royal cells. It is when they are in this temper, and not sooner, that a stranger queen will be graciously received; and upon her being presented to them, the royal cells, in whatever state of forwardness they may happen to be, are instantly abandoned, and the larvae destroyed. Reaumur must therefore have mistaken the result of his own experiments, when he a.s.serts, that a stranger queen is instantly well received, though presented at the moment when the other is withdrawn. He had seen the bees crowding around her at the entrance of the hive, and laying their antennae over her; and this he seems to have taken for caressing. The structure of the hives he employed prevented him from seeing further: had he used the leaf-hive, or one of similar construction, he would have perceived that the apparent caresses of the guards were only the prelude to actual imprisonment.

It is well known, that after the season of swarming, a general ma.s.sacre of the drones is commenced. Several authors a.s.sert, in their writings, that the workers do not sting the drones to death, but merely hara.s.s them till they are banished from the hive and perish. M. Huber contrived a gla.s.s table, on which he placed several hives, and he was thus able to see distinctly what pa.s.sed at the bottom of the hive, which is generally dark and concealed: he witnessed a real and furious ma.s.sacre of the males, the workers thrusting their stings so deep into the bodies of the defenceless drones, that they were obliged to turn on themselves as on a pivot, before they could extricate them. The work of death commenced in all the hives much about the same time. It is not, however, by a blind or indiscriminating instinct, that the workers are impelled thus to sacrifice the males; for if a hive be deprived of its queen, no ma.s.sacre of the males takes place in it, while the hottest persecution rages in all the surrounding hives. In this case, the males are allowed to survive the winter. Mr. Bonner had observed this fact; he supposed, however, that the workers thus tolerated the drones for the sake of the additional heat they generated in the hive; but we now see the true reason to be, that without them the new queen would not be fruitful. The drones are also suffered to exist in hives that possess fertile workers, but no proper queen; and, what is remarkable, they are likewise spared in hives governed by a queen whose fecundity has been r.e.t.a.r.ded. Here, then, we perceive a counter-instinct opposed to that which would have impelled them to the usual ma.s.sacre.

Upon the subject of swarming, M. Huber commences with an interesting account of the hatching of the queen bee. When the pupa is about to change into the perfect insect, the bees render the cover of the cell thinner, by gnawing away part of the wax; and with so much nicety do they perform this operation, that the cover at last becomes pellucid, owing to its extreme thinness. This must not only facilitate the exit of the fly, but, M. Huber remarks, it may possibly be useful in permitting the evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the nymph. After the transformation is complete, the young queens would, in common course, immediately emerge from their cells, as workers and drones do; but the bees always keep them prisoners for some days in their cells, supplying them in the mean time with honey for food; a small hole being made in the door of each cell, through which the confined bee extends its proboscis to receive it. The royal prisoners continually utter a kind of song, the modulations of which are said to vary. The final cause of this temporary imprisonment, it is suggested, may possibly be, that they may be able to take flight at the instant they are liberated. When a young queen at last gets out, she meets with rather an awkward reception; she is pulled, bitten, and chased, as often as she happens to approach the other royal cells in the hive. The purpose of nature here seems to be, that she should be impelled to go off with a swarm as soon as possible. A curious fact was observed on these occasions: when the queen found herself much hara.s.sed, she had only to utter a peculiar noise, (the commanding voice, we may presume, of sovereignty,) and all the bees were instantaneously constrained to submission and obedience. This is, indeed, one of the most marked instances in which the queen exerts her sovereign power.

The conclusions at which M. Huber arrives on the subject of swarms are the following:--

First, "A swarm is always led off by a single queen, either the sovereign of the parent hive, or one recently brought into existence. If, at the return of spring, we examine a hive well peopled, and governed by a fertile queen, we shall see her lay a prodigious number of male eggs in the course of May, and the workers will choose that moment for constructing several royal cells." This laying of male eggs in May, M.

Huber calls the great laying; and he remarks, that no queen ever has a great laying till she be eleven months old. It is only after finis.h.i.+ng this laying, that she is able to undertake the journey implied in leading a swarm; for, previously to this, "_latum trahit alvum_," which unfits her for flying. There appears to be a secret relation between the production of the male eggs, and the construction of royal cells. The great laying commonly lasts thirty days; and regularly, on the twentieth or twenty-first, several royal cells are founded.

Secondly, "When the larvae hatched from the eggs laid by the queen in the royal cells are ready to transform to nymphs, this queen leaves the hive, conducting a swarm along with her; and the first swarm that proceeds from the hive is uniformly conducted by the old queen." M. Huber remarks, that it was necessary that instinct should impel the old queen to lead forth the first swarm: for, that she being the strongest, would never have failed to have overthrown the younger compet.i.tors for the throne. An old queen, as has already been said, never quits a hive at the head of a swarm, till she has finished her laying of male eggs; but this is of importance, not merely that she may be lighter and fitter for flight, but that she may be ready to begin with the laying of workers' eggs in her new habitation, workers being the bees first needed, in order to secure the continuance and prosperity of the newly-founded commonwealth.

Thirdly, "After the old queen has conducted the first swarm from the hive, the remaining bees take particular care of the royal cells, and prevent the young queens, successively hatched, from leaving them, unless at an interval of several days between each." Under this head he introduces a number of general remarks, some of which may prove useful. "A swarm (he observes) is never seen unless in a fine day, or, to speak more correctly, at a time of the day when the sun s.h.i.+nes, and the air is calm. Sometimes we have observed all the precursors of swarming, disorder and agitation: but a cloud pa.s.sed before the sun, and tranquillity was restored; the bees thought no more of swarming. An hour afterwards, the sun having again appeared, the tumult was renewed; it rapidly augmented, and the swarm departed." A certain degree of tumult commences as soon as the young queens are hatched, and begin to traverse the hive: the agitation soon pervades the whole bees; and such a ferment soon rages, that M. Huber has often observed the thermometer in the hive to rise suddenly from about 92 to above 104: this suffocating heat he considers as one of the means employed by nature for urging the bees to go off in swarms. In warm weather, one strong hive has been known to send off four swarms in eighteen days.

The cause of the bees, which has been so eloquently and pathetically pleaded by the Poet of the Seasons, is supported by M. Huber, on a principle more intelligible, perhaps, and more persuasive, to most country bee-masters, viz. interest. He deprecates the destruction of bees, and recommends to the cultivator to be content with a reasonable share of the wealth of the hive; arguing very justly, we believe, that a little taken from each of a number of hives, is ultimately much more profitable than a greater quant.i.ty obtained by a total destruction of a few.

We conclude our observations on this curious insect by two poetical quotations.

"Of all the race of animals, alone The bees have common cities of their own.

Mindful of coming cold, they share the pain, And h.o.a.rd for winter's use the summer's gain.

Some o'er the public magazines preside, And some are sent new forage to provide; These drudge in fields abroad, and those at home Lay deep foundations for the labour'd comb; To pitch the waxen flooring some contrive; Some nurse the future nation of the hive.

Their toil is common, common is their sleep; They shake their wings when morn begins to peep: Rush through the city gates without delay, Nor ends their work but with declining day."

Churchill, after the following beautiful and picturesque description, introduces a sovereign, drawing from it, in a soliloquy, the most natural reflections on the momentous duties of his station.

Strength in her limbs, and on her wings dispatch, The bee goes forth; from herb to herb she flies, From flow'r to flow'r, and loads her lab'ring thighs With treasur'd sweets, robbing those flow'rs, which left, Find not themselves made poorer by the theft, Their scents as lively, and their looks as fair, As if the pillager had not been there.

Ne'er doth she flit on pleasure's silken wing, Ne'er doth she loit'ring let the bloom of spring Unrifled pa.s.s, and on the downy breast Of some fair flow'r indulge untimely rest.

Ne'er doth she, drinking deep of those rich dews Which chemist Night prepar'd, that faith abuse Due to the hive, and, selfish in her toils, To her own private use convert the spoils.

Love of the stock first call'd her forth to roam, And to the stock she brings her honey home."

CHAP. XXIII.

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING INSECTS.--(_Continued._)

_The Clothier Bee.--The Carpenter Bee.--The Mason Bee.--The Upholsterer Bee.--The Leaf-cutter Bee.--Curious Account of an Idiot Boy and Bees.--Mr. Wildman's Curious Exhibitions of Bees explained._

WILD BEES.

THE CLOTHIER BEE.

Learn each small people's genius, policies, The ants' republic, and the realm of bees; How those in common all their wealth bestow And anarchy without confusion know; And these for ever, though a monarch reign, Their separate cells and properties maintain.

Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, Laws, wise as Nature, and as fixt as Fate.

_Pope._

The following curious account of wild bees is princ.i.p.ally abridged from Kirby and Spence's very interesting work on entomology.

The clothier bee is a lively and gay insect. It does not excavate holes for their reception, but places them in the cavities of old trees, or of any other object that suits its purpose. Sir Thomas Cullum discovered the nest of one in the inside of the lock of a garden gate, in which Mr. Kirby also since twice found them. It should seem, however, that such situations would be too cold for the grubs without a coating of some non-conducting substance. The parent bee, therefore, after having constructed the cells, laid an egg in each, and filled them with a store of suitable food, plasters them with a covering of vermiform ma.s.ses, apparently composed of honey and pollen; and having done this, aware (long before Count Rumford's experiments) what materials conduct heat most slowly, she attacks the woolly leaves of Stachy's lanata, Agrostemma coronaria, and similar plants, and with her mandibles industriously sc.r.a.pes off the wool, which with her fore legs she rolls into a little ball, and carries to her nest. This wool she sticks upon the plaster that covers her cells, and thus closely envelopes them with a warm coating of down, impervious to every change of temperature.

THE CARPENTER BEE.--A numerous family of wild bees may properly be compared to carpenters, boring with incredible labour, out of the solid wood, long cylindrical tubes, and dividing them into various cells.

Amongst these, one of the most remarkable is the Apis violacea, L.

(Xylacopa, Latr.) a large species, a native of southern Europe, distinguished by beautiful wings of a deep violet colour, and found commonly in gardens, in the upright putrescent espaliers, or vine props, of which, and occasionally in the garden seats, doors, and window-shutters, she makes her nest. In the beginning of spring, after repeated and careful surveys, she fixes upon a piece of wood suitable for her purpose, and with her strong mandibles begins the process of boring.

First proceeding obliquely downwards, she soon points her course in a direction parallel with the sides of the wood, and at length with unwearied exertion forms a cylindrical hole or tunnel not less than twelve or fifteen inches long, and half an inch broad. Sometimes, where the diameter will admit of it, three or four of these pipes, nearly parallel with each other, are bored in the same piece. Herculean as this task (which is the labour of several days) appears, it is but a small part of what our industrious bee cheerfully undertakes. As yet she has completed, but the sh.e.l.l of the destined habitation of her offspring; each of which, to the number of ten or twelve, will require a separate and distinct apartment. In excavating her tunnel, she has detached a large quant.i.ty of fibres, which lie on the ground like a heap of saw-dust. This material supplies all her wants. Having deposited an egg at the bottom of the cylinder, along with the requisite store of pollen and honey, she next, at the height of about three-quarters of an inch, (which is the depth of each cell,) constructs of particles of the saw-dust glued together, and also to the sides of the tunnel, what may be called an annular stage or scaffolding. When this is sufficiently hardened, its interior edge affords support for a second ring of the same materials, and thus the ceiling is gradually formed of these concentric circles, till there remains only a small orifice in its centre, which is also closed with a circular ma.s.s of agglutinated particles of saw-dust. When this part.i.tion, which serves as the ceiling of the first cell, and the flooring of the second, is finished, it is about the thickness of a crown piece, and exhibits the appearance of as many concentric circles as the animal has made pauses in her labour. One cell being finished, she proceeds to another, which she furnishes and completes in the same manner, and so on, until she has divided her whole tunnel into ten or twelve apartments.

Such a laborious undertaking as the constructing and furnis.h.i.+ng these cells, cannot be the work of one, or even of two days. Considering that every cell requires a store of honey and pollen, not to be collected but with long toil, and that a considerable interval must be spent in agglutinating the floors of each, it will be very obvious that the last egg in the last cell must be laid many days after the first. We are certain, therefore, that the first egg will become a grub, and consequently a perfect bee, many days before the last. What then becomes of it? It is impossible that it should make its escape through eleven superinc.u.mbent cells, without destroying the immature tenants; and it seems equally impossible that it should remain patiently in confinement below them until they are all disclosed. This dilemma our heaven-taught architect has provided against. With forethought, never enough to be admired, she has not constructed her tunnel with one opening only, but at the farther end has pierced another orifice, a kind of back door, through which the insects produced by the first-laid eggs successively emerge into day. In fact, all the young bees, even the uppermost, go out by this road; for, by an exquisite instinct, each grub, when about to become a pupa, places itself in its cell, with its head downwards, and thus is necessitated, when arrived at its last state, to pierce its cell in this direction.

We shall now describe THE MASON-BEE.--There is a family of wild bees which carry on the trade of masons, building their solid houses solely of artificial stone. The first step of the mother bee, _Apis mururia, Oliv._ (_Anthophara, F. Megachile, Latr._) is to fix upon a proper situation for the future mansion of her offspring. For this she usually selects an angle, sheltered by any projection, on the south side of a stone wall. Her next care is to provide materials for the structure. The chief of these is sand, which she carefully selects, grain by grain, from such as contain some mixture of earth; these grains she glues together with her viscid saliva into ma.s.ses the size of small shot,[10] and transports by means of her jaws to the site of her castle. With a number of these ma.s.ses, which are the artificial stone of which her building is to be composed, united by a cement preferable to ours, she first forms the basis or foundation of the whole. Next she raises the walls of a cell, which is an inch long and half an inch broad, and, before its orifice is closed, in form resembles a thimble. This, after depositing an egg, and a supply of honey and pollen, she covers in, and then proceeds to the erection of a second, which she finishes in the same manner, until the whole number, which varies from four to eight, is completed. The vacuities between the cells, which are not placed in any regular order, some being parallel to the wall, others being perpendicular to it, and others inclined to it at different angles, this laborious architect fills up with the same material of which the cells are composed, and then bestows upon the whole group a common covering of coa.r.s.er grains of sand. The form of the whole nest, which, when finished, is a solid ma.s.s of stone, so hard as not to be easily penetrated with the blade of a knife, is an irregular oblong, of the same colour as the sand, and, to a casual observer, more resembling a splash of mud than an artificial structure. These bees sometimes are more economical of their labour, and repair old nests, for the possession of which they have very desperate combats. One would have supposed that the inhabitants of a castle so fortified might defy the attack of an insect marauder. Yet an ichneumon, and a beetle (_Clerius apiarius, F._) both contrive to introduce their eggs into the cells, and the larvae proceeding from them devour their inhabitants.--_Reaum._ vi. 57, 58. _Mon. Ap. Angl._ i. 179.

Other bees of the same family use different materials in the construction of their nests. Some employ fine earth made into a kind of mortar made with gluten. Another, (_A. coerulescens, L._) as we learn from De Geer, forms its nest of argillaceous earth, mixed with chalk, upon stone walls, and sometimes probably builds in chalk-pits. _Apis bicornis, L._ selects the hollows of large stones for the site of its dwelling; whilst others prefer the holes in wood.

We now proceed to THE UPHOLSTERER-BEE.--Such may those be denominated which line the holes excavated in the earth for the reception of their young, with an elegant coating of flowers or of leaves. Amongst the most interesting of these is _Apis Papaveris_, (_Megachile, Latr., Anthophora, F._) a species whose manners have been admirably described by Reaumur.

This little bee, as though fascinated with the colour most attractive to our eyes, invariably chooses for the hangings of her apartments the most brilliant scarlet, selecting for its material the petals of the wild poppy, which she dexterously cuts into the proper form. Her first process is to excavate in some pathway a burrow, cylindrical at the entrance, but swelled out below, to the depth of about three inches. Having polished the walls of this little apartment, she next flies to a neighbouring field, cuts out oval portions of the flowers of poppies, seizes them between her legs, and returns with them to her cell; and though separated from the wrinkled petal of a half-expanded flower, she knows how to straighten their folds, and, if too large, to fit them for her purpose by cutting off the superfluous parts. Beginning at the bottom, she overlays the walls of her mansion with this brilliant tapestry, extending it also on the surface of the ground round the margin of the orifice. The bottom is rendered warm by three or four coats, and the sides have never less than two. The little upholsterer, having completed the hangings of her apartment, next fills it with pollen and honey to the height of about half an inch; then, after committing an egg to it, she wraps over the poppy lining, so that even the roof may leave this material; and lastly, closes its mouth with a small hillock of earth.--_Reaum._ 6. 139 to 148. The great depth of the cell, compared with the s.p.a.ce which the single egg and the accompanying food deposited in it occupy, deserves particular notice. This is not more than half an inch at the bottom, the remaining two inches and a half being subsequently filled with earth.

THE LEAF-CUTTER BEE.--There is a species of wild bee, that cover the walls of their cells with coatings of sober-coloured materials, generally selecting for their hangings the leaves of trees, especially of the rose, whence they have been known by the name of the leaf-cutter bees. They differ also from _A. Papaveris_ in excavating longer burrows, and filling them with several thimble-shaped cells, composed of portions of leaves so curiously convoluted, that, if we were ignorant in what school they have been taught to construct them, we should never credit their being the work of an insect. Their entertaining history, so long ago as 1670, attracted the attention of our countrymen, Ray, Lister, Willoughby, and Sir Edw.

King; but we are indebted for the most complete account of the procedure, to Reaumur.

The mother bee first excavates a cylindrical hole eight or ten inches long, in a horizontal direction, either in the ground or in the trunk of a rotten willow-tree, or occasionally in other decaying wood. This cavity she fills with six or seven cells, wholly composed of portions of leaf in the shape of a thimble, the convex end of one closely fitting into the open end of another. Her first process is to form the exterior coating, which is composed of three or four pieces, of larger dimensions than the rest, and of an oval form. The second coating is formed of portions of equal size, narrow at one end, but gradually widening towards the other, where the width equals half the length. One side of these pieces is the serrate margin of the leaf from which it was taken, which, as the pieces are made to lap one over the other, is kept on the outside, and that which has been cut within. The little animal now forms a third coating of similar materials, the middle of which, as the most skilful workman would do in similar circ.u.mstances, she places over the margins of those that form the first tube, thus covering and strengthening the junctures.