244 Marvels of Insect Life. 



a single example of it — bees will build comb upu'ards, if circumstances will allow 

 no other way. And this would seem not only to drive the last coffin-nail for the 

 poor instinct-theory, but to carve its epitaph as well. 



" In the instance referred to, a glass-bottomed box had been inverted over 

 the feed-hole of a common hive, and had there remained forgotten. As the season 

 progressed, the hive grew great with bees and honey, and it became imperative 

 to build additional store-comb in the box overhead. But its slippery glass roof 

 would give no foothold to the builders. Time and again they must have tried to 

 get upon it, with their wax-hods filled and ready, and each time failed : the 

 ordinary way of comb-building w-as clearly impossible. Then the engineers of 

 the hive, inspired by the difficulty, got to work in another way. On the wooden 

 surface below they laid out the plan of a garner-house, not after their usual 

 method of parallel combs, but a regular, oblong house, with cellular store-rooms 

 and communicating passages in between. Upon this they raised storey 

 above storey of horizontal cells, until the glass roof was nearly reached." 



Other wax-workei s 

 u'ill be found, as indi- 

 -"TT'" - cated, in the humble- 



bees, ^ which, however, 

 call for separate treatment. 



Egger-Moths. 



One of the best-known 

 families of moths in this 

 country is that - which 

 includes the oak-egger, the 

 lackev, the fox, the drinker, 



Phoiob^'] [J.F.Hammond, and thc lappct - motli. 



Sting of Bee. „ ^ 



The sting of the honey-bee is shown with its guard magiiifud tuche times. The swollen i nCSC arC all mOre Or ICSS 

 body to the right is the poison-gland in connection with it, which makes the being stung ^ ... . . , 



so unpleasant a matter. familiar, Clthcr aS mOtllS 



or caterpillars, to all who as bo\'s have had the run of countr\' lanes and woods. 

 The caterpillars attract attention bv reason of the soft w'oolly hair with which they 

 are clothed, and the moths by their stout bodies and their usually dense coating 

 of scales. Another feature of thc moths is the comb-like fringe of the antennae, 

 always more highly developed in the males than in the females, which is, 

 no doubt, a very important sense-organ. The caterpillars spin closely compacted 

 oval cocoons, often with their no-longer-needed hairs mixed up with the 

 silk. The name eggcr w^as probably suggested bv the size and shape of these 

 cocoons. The egg-like character of the cocoon is in some cases increased 

 by the caterpillar discharging over the silk a sokition of calcium oxalate, 

 which gives it a chalky appearance. The moths la\- large, smooth eggs, often boldly 

 spotted or blotched. 



The typical species is the oak-egger,-'^ a iine substantial-looking moth, which, 

 with outspiead wings, measures three inches across. This is thc measurement of 

 the female ; the male is less by three-quarters of an inch, or one-fourth. The general 



1 Ik)in!)us. 2 I^asiocampidae. ^ Lasiocampa qucrcus. 



