HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 281 



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 

 labour 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 eHectuall}' 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 join- 

 ings 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 larvse. Some 

 are closed at the upper extremity ; others, which chieHy 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 dimen- 

 sions : some above an inch, and others not a quarter of an inch, in dia- 

 meter ; which, on being opened, are found to include a number of larvae 

 surrounded with a supply of ])ollen 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 pro- 

 vision, 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 larva;. It falls to the workers, however, 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 tube 

 of wax made in a different shajje by different species ; and to coat them 

 internally with a lining of the same material. They even occasionally con- 

 struct 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-legs, as it were, felts it together. When the fibres are sufficiently 



» Ruber, Linn. Trans, vi. 215 — 298. 



