SARTOR mSECTORUM. 407 



hrevis], having nearly the same habits, which indeed 

 differ Httle from those of tlieir European congeners. 

 The insect begins her nest by boring a hole about the 

 diameter of her own body in the soft pith of an elder 

 stem, or the soft wood of some old tree. Sometimes 

 she digs a cylindrical hole in a beaten pathway. Some- 

 times she economizes her labor by choosing the hollow 

 of a tree, the shelter of a cornice, or the cavities of an 

 old wall for her home-site. This done, she seeks her 

 favorite plant, which is commonly a rose-bush, and 

 begins to harvest leaves. 



"She makes the cut in almost the same way as the 

 cutting ant, as I have heretofore described it. She 

 flits from leaf to leaf, not that there appears to be any 

 ground for a selection, but somewhat on the principle 

 (whatever it is) that moves certain ladies in their 

 shopping expeditions. At last she is satisfied, settles 

 upon the leaf, clinging by her feet to its edges. Then 

 she draws her scissors Avhich she carries not at her 

 belt, but on the end of her face. In other words, she 

 opens her mandibles, which are well ordei'ed tools for 

 the purpose, and makes a slit into the edge of the leaf. 

 Thence she moves rapidly around the major part of a 

 circle, using her jaws as though one point of a pair of 

 compasses and her feet as the others. The jiws work 

 precisely like a pair of scissoi's, and with each forward 

 slit the legs are hitched farther along, until the op- 

 posite edge of the leaf is reached. Now she holds the 

 cutting in her jaws, balances it while she poises her 

 body upon fluttering wings, adjusts the severed piece 



