iGS FAIVriLIiE. {Apis. ¥.*. c. 2. «.) 



them ; at least as to disposition and economy : 

 that best known bores its listular passage under 

 groimd, and there constructs its cases. 



" The cases look like pellets froin pop-guns, or 

 small rockets made on a mandrill in an hollow 

 tubular mould, ^ of an inch long, or near inch ; 

 more than inch round. Each end is covered with 

 a circular piece of leaf of the proper size, and is 

 alternately convex and concave ; and so inoscu- 

 lates closely that the junction is hardly preceptible. 

 I started a difficulty yesterday, how the first laid 

 egg, after being a maggot, and a chrysalis, and last 

 of all a bee, got out through all the superincum- 

 bent houses, whose inhabitants were not yet ready 

 to quit them. But nature is never to be caught 

 at fault, and the lowest and first born passes out 

 through the bottom of its own (lowest) cell^ and 

 so escapes without disturbing any of the rest, who 

 are not yet ready to emigrate : when they are, 

 they do the same successively, and pass on through 

 the empty cases of their predecessors, till they reach 

 day- light; and a long journey the last hatched 

 must have : and if only the mother bee makes 

 the original pipe, considering the quantity you 

 mentioned, how vast is such a little creature's 

 labour. 



" After boreing the hole, the bee who works in 

 the center, and consequently may be considered as 

 the mandril, or rather as the paperer, lines the in- 

 side of the wooden pipe vvith rose leaves; arid 



every 



