230 THE HUMBLE-BEE x 
the area surrounded by my little trench. Three 
dead earth-worms lay in the trench. The turpentine 
odour had passed off but that of the paraffin 
remained. 
8 p.m. When I came to fill the honey-pot I 
found that the lump of comb had rolled almost off 
the sacking, so I hollowed the latter in the middle 
to retain it. The queen seemed to consider the 
brood to be insufficiently covered and ran about, 
pulling and detaching bits of nest material with her 
jaws and carding them with her legs. She even 
tried to bite little pieces off the edges of ie 
sacking. While thus occupied she frequently re-— 
turned to the brood, and always when she reached 
it emitted little buzzes of pleasure. 
July 2. The queen has continued to fly with 
her tail inclining to the left, but to-day less markedly 
than at first because both her wings have now 
become much lacerated. Her flight has become 
much less swift and strong than formerly. ‘To-day 
she could fly only slowly and evidently realised her 
crowing feebleness, for she worked a good deal in 
the garden. She travelled to the sage, S. officenalzs, 
knowing well where the two clumps of it in different 
parts of the garden were situated, and her thorax 
was dusted with pollen from an orange lily that 
stood near her nest. She also visited the birds-foot 
trefoil on the lawn. But she alighted too on grasses 
and on the flowers of a sow-thistle, from which, of 
course, she could obtain nothing. How easily she 
would now have fallen a prey to a bird had it 
