AFFECTIOX OF INSECTS FOn THEIR YOUNG. 349 



SO accurately is the repast proportioned to its appetite 

 and its wants, that as soon as the whole is consumed it 

 has no longer need of food : it clothes itself in a silken 

 cocoon, becomes a pupa, and after a deep sleep of a few 

 days bursts from its cell an active bee. 



No circumstance connected with the Storge of in- 

 sects, is more striking than the herculean and incessant 

 labour which it leads them cheerfully to undergo. Some 

 of these exertions are so disproportionate to the size of 

 the insect, that nothing short of ocular conviction could 

 attribute them to such an agent. A wild bee or a Sphex, 

 for instance, will dig a hole in a hard bank of earth some 

 inches deep and five or six times its own size, and labour 

 unremittingly at this arduous undertaking for several 

 days, scarcely allowing itself a moment for eating or 

 repose. It will then occupy as much time in searching 

 for a store of food; and no sooner is this task finished, 

 than it will set about repeating the process, and before 

 it dies will have completed five or six similar cells or 

 even more. If you would estimate this industry at its 

 proper value, you should reflect what kind of exertion 

 it would require in a man to dig in a few days out of 

 hard clay or sand, with no other tools than his nails 

 and teeth, five or six caverns twenty feet deep and four 

 or five wide — for such an undertaking would not be com- 

 paratively greater than that of the insects in question. 



Similar laborious exertions are not confined to the 

 bee or Sphex tribe. Several beetles in depositing their 

 eggs exhibit examples of industry equally extraordi- 

 nary. The common dor or clock, {Scarabceus sterco- 

 rarius, L.) which may be found beneath every heap of 

 dung, digs a deep cylindrical hole, and, carrying down 



