42 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



At the bottom of her excavation she deposits an egg, and 

 over it fills a space nearly an inch high with the pollen of 

 flowers, made into a paste with honey. She then covers 

 this over with a ceiling composed of cemented sawdust, 

 Avhich also serves for the floor of the next chamber above 

 it. For this purpose she cements round a wall a ring, of 

 wood-chips taken from her store-heap ; and within this ring 

 forms another, gradually contracting the diameter till she 

 has constructed a circular plate, about the thickness of a 

 crown-piece, and of considerable hardness. This plate 

 of course exhibits concentric circles, somewhat similar to 

 the annual circles in the cross section of a tree. In the 

 same manner she proceeds till she has completed ten or 

 twelve cells ; and then she closes the main entrance with a 

 barrier of similar materials. 



Let us compare the progress of this little joiner with 

 a human artisan — one who has been long practised in his 

 trade, and has the most perfect and complicated tools 

 for his assistance. The bee has learnt nothing by prac- 

 tice ; she makes her nest but once in her life, but it is then 

 as complete and finished as if she had made a thousand. 

 She has no pattern before her — but the Architect of all 

 things has impressed a plan upon her mind, which she can 

 realize without scale or compasses. Her two sharp teeth 

 are the only tools with which she is provided for her 

 laborious woik ; and yet she bores a tunnel, twelve times 

 the length of her own body, with greater ease than the 

 workman who bores into the earth for water, with his 

 apparatus of augurs adapted to every soil. Her tunnel is 

 clean and regular ; she leaves no chips at the bottom, for 

 she is provident of her materials. Further, she has an 

 exquisite piece of joinery to perform when her ruder labour 

 is accomplished. The patient bee works her rings from 

 the circumference to the centre, and she produces a shelf, 

 united with such care with her natural glue, that a number 

 of fragments are as solid as one piece. 



The violet carpenter-bee, as may be expected, occupies 

 several weeks in these complicated labours : and during 

 that period she is gradually depositing her eggs, each of 



