500 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



plies the larvae with a daily provision, as has been de- 

 scribed in a former letter, until they are sufficiently 

 grown to spin the cocoons before spoken of. Lastly, in 

 all the corners of the combs, and especially in the mid- 

 dle, we observe a considerable number of small goblet- 

 like vessels, filled with honey and pollen, which are not, 

 as in the case of the hive-bee, the fabrication of the 

 workers, but are chiefly the empty cocoons left by the 

 larvae. It falls to the workers, however, to cut off the 

 fras-ments of silk from the orifice of the cocoon, which, 

 after giving it a regular circular form, they strengthen 

 by a ring or elevated "tube of wax made in a different 

 shape by different species ; and to coat them internally 

 with a lining of the same material. They even occasion- 

 ally construct honey-pots entirely of wax *. 



The most curious circumstance in the construction of 

 these nests, is the mode in which the bees transport the 

 moss employed in forming the roof. When they have 

 discovered a parcel of this material conveniently situated 

 upon the ground, five or six insects place themselves 

 upon it in a file, turning the hinder part of their bodies 

 towards the quarter to which it is meant to be conveyed. 

 The first takes a small portion, and with its jaws and 

 fore-le<rs as it were felts it too-ether. When the fibres 

 are sufficiently entangled, it pushes them under its body 

 by means of the first pair of legs ; the intermediate pair 

 receives the moss, and delivers it to the last, which pro- 

 trudes it as far as possible beyond the anus. When by 

 this process the insect has formed behind it a small ball 

 of well-carded moss, the next bee pushes it to the third, 

 which consigns it in like manner to that behind it ; and 



* Huber, Liiiii. Tr. vi. 215-298. 



