- HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 3I7 



the world construct nests by the united labor of the society. The habita- 

 tions composing them are of a rude construction, and the streets are 

 arranged with little architectural regularity. The number of inhabitants, 

 too, is small, rarely exceeding two or three hundred, and often not more 

 than twenty. The nests of some species, as of Bombus^ lapidarius, 

 terresiris, &c., are found underground, at the depth of a foot or more below 

 the surface ; but as the internal structure of these does not essentially 

 differ from that of the more singular habitations of B. muscorum, and as 

 some of the subterranean species occasionally adopt the same situation, I 

 shall confine my description to the latter. 



These nests, which do not exceed six or eight inches in diameter, are 

 generally found in meadows and pastures, and sometimes in hedge-rows 

 where the soil is entangled with roots. The lower half occupies a cavity 

 in the soil, either accidentally found ready made, or excavated with great 

 labor by the bees. The upper part or dome of the nest is composed of a 

 thick felted covering of moss, having the interior ceiling coated with a thin 

 roof of coarse wax for the purpose of keeping out the wet. The entrance 

 is in the lower part, and is generally through a gallery or covered way, 

 sometimes more than a foot in length and half an inch in diameter, by 

 means of which the nest is more effectually concealed from observation. 

 On removing the coping of moss, the interior presents to our view a very 

 different scene from that witnessed in a bee-hive. Instead of numerous 

 vertical combs of wax, we see merely a few irregular horizontal combs 

 placed one above the other, the uppermost resting upon the more elevated 

 parts of the lower, and connected together by small pillars of wax. 

 Each of these combs consists of several groups of pale-yellow oval bodies 

 of three different sizes, those in the middle being the largest, closely 

 joined to each other, and each group connected with those next it by 

 slight joinings of wax. These oval bodies are not, as you might suppose, 

 the work of the old bees, but the silken cocoons spun by the young larvae. 

 Some are closed at the upper extremity ; others, which chiefly occupy the 

 lower combs, have this part open. The former are those which yet 

 include their immature tenants ; the latter are the empty cases from which 

 the young bees have escaped. On the surface of the upper comb are 

 seen several masses of wax of a flattened spheroidal shape, and of very 

 various dimensions : some above an inch, and others not a quarter of an 

 inch, in diameter; which, on being opened, are found to include a number 

 of larvs surrounded with a supply of pollen moistened with honey. 

 These, which are the true cells, are chiefly the work of the female, which, 

 after depositing her eggs in them, furnishes them with a store of pollen 

 and honey; and, when this is consumed, supplies the larvae with a daily 

 provision, as has been described 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 middle, 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, how- 

 ever, to cut off the fragments of silk from the orifice of the cocoon, which, 

 after giving it a regular circular form, they strengthen by a ring or elevated 



» Apis. **. e. 2. K. 

 27* 



