THE IL\R\L\S 9 



cobwebby stalk of the yellow-flowered centaury and 

 gathers a ball of wadding which she carries off proudly 

 in the tips of her mandibles. She will turn it, under 

 ground, into cotton-felt satchels to hold the store of 

 honey and the egg. And these others, so eager for 

 plunder? They are ^fegachiles,^ carrying under their 

 bellies their black, white, or blood-red reaping-brushes. 

 They will leave the thistles to visit the neighboring shrubs 

 and there cut from the leaves oval- pieces which will be 

 made into a fit receptacle to contain the harvest. And 

 these, clad in black velvet? They are Chalicodomse,^ 

 who work with cement and gravel. We could easily find 

 their masonry on the stones in the harmas. And these, 

 noisily buzzing with a sudden flight? They are the 

 Anthophorse,^ who live in the old walls and the sunny 

 1 anks of the neighborhood. 



Now come the Osmise. One stacks her cells in the 

 spiral staircase of an empty snail-shell; another, attack- 

 ing the pith of a dry bit of bramble, obtains for her 

 grubs a cylindrical lodging and divides it into floors by 

 means of partition-walls; a third employs the natural 

 channel of a cut reed; a fourth is a rent-free tenant of 

 the vacant galleries of some Mason-bee. Here are the 

 ^lacrocerae and the Eucerse, whose males are proudly 

 homed; the Dasv-podae, who carry an ample brush of 

 bristles on their hind-legs for a reaping implement; the 

 Andrenae, so manyfold in species; the slender-bellied 



1 Leaf -cutting Bees. — Translator's Note. 



2 Mason-bees. — Translator's Note. 



• A species of Wild Bees. — Translator's Note. 



