84 NATURAL HISTORY [CH. V 



thread by thread, carded it with their feet into a felted 

 mass, and appUed it to the same uses as moss, for 

 which it proved an excellent substitute. Some other 

 humble bees tore the cover of a book with which he 

 had closed the top of a box which contained them, 

 and made use of the detached morsels in covering 

 their nests. 



They divide their labour in a curious manner. A 

 bee settles on a tuft of moss, its head being turned 

 from the nest, and its tail towards it : with its teeth 

 and its first two legs it divides and disentangles the 

 filaments, and transfers them to the two middle legs ; 

 the second pair seize and push them to the third pair, 

 and these tlirust them as far behind the tail of the 

 bee as they can reach, by which means the moss is 

 advanced towards the place where it is proposed to 

 build the nest, by a space which somewhat exceeds 

 the whole length of the body of one bee ; another 

 bee, placed in a line with the first, receives the ball 

 of material with its fore-legs, and like the first, trans- 

 fers it the whole length of its body ; and thus four 

 or five of these insects, stationed in a row, spare 

 time and labour in conveying the material for build- 

 ing, on the same principle that Irish labourers may 

 be seen transferring their wheelbarrows from one to 

 another. 



The inside of the nest contains a comb or combs, 

 which show no trace of the geometrical principles 

 recognised in the workmanship of the hive bee. 

 The upper surface of each comb is irregularly con- 

 vex, its under concave, and it is composed of oval 

 eminences placed against each other (Jig. l,c). Thes© 



