MASOX-BEES. 



25 



frequenting sandy banks exposed to the sun, and construct- 

 ing its singular burrows. The sort of sand-bank which it 

 selects is hard and compact ; and though this may be more 

 difficult to penetrate, the walls are not liable to fall down 

 upon the little miner. In such a bank, the mason-wasp 

 bores a tubular gallery two or three inches deep. The 

 sand upon which Reaumur found some of these wasps at 

 work was almost as hard as stone, and yielded with difficulty 

 to his nail ; but the wasps dug into it with ease, having 

 recourse, as he ascertained, to the ingenious device of 

 moistening it by letting fall two or three drops of fluid from 

 their mouth, which rendered the mass ductile, and the 

 separation of the grains easy to the double pickaxe of the 

 little pioneers. 



When this wasp has detached a few grains of the 

 moistened sand, it kneads them together into a pellet about 



Nests, &c., of Mason-Wasps.— About half the natural size. 



a, The tower of the nest; h, the entrance after the tower is removed ; c, the cell ; d, the 

 cell, with a roll of caterpillars prepared for the larva. 



the size of one of the seeds of a gooseberry. With the first 

 pellet which it detaches, it lays the foundation of a round 

 tower, as an outwork, immediately over the mouth of its 

 nest. Every pellet which it afterwards carries off from the 

 interior is added to the wall of this outer round tower, 

 which advances in heiurht as the hole in the sand increases 



