440 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



sidering that every cell requires a store of honey and 

 pollen, not to be collected but with long toil, and that 

 a considerable interval must be spent in agglutinating 

 the floors of each, it will be very obvious to you that 

 the last egg in the last cell must be laid many days 

 after the first. We are certain, therefore, that the first 

 egg will become a grub, and consequently a perfect 

 bee, many days before the last. What then becomes of 

 it? you will ask. It is impossible that it should make 

 its escape througli eleven superincunibent cells without 

 destroying the immature tenants; and it seems equally 

 impossible that it should remain patiently in confine- 

 ment below them until they are all disclosed. This 

 dilemma our heaven-taught architect has provided 

 against. With forethought never enough to be ad- 

 mired she has not constructed her tunnel with one open- 

 ing only, but at the further end has pierced another 

 orifice, a kind of back-door, through which the insects 

 produced by the first-laid eggs successively emerge 

 into day. In fact, all the young bees, even the upper- 

 most, go out by this road ; for, by an exquisite instinct, 

 each grub, when about to become a pupa, places itself 

 in its cell with its head downwards, and thus is neces- 

 sitated, when arrived at its last state, to pierce its cell 

 in this direction ^. 



Ceratina albilabris of Spinola, who has given an in- 

 teresting account of its manners, (Prosopis, F., Melit- 

 ta *. b. Kirby,) forms its cell upon the general plan of 

 the bee just described, but, more economical of labour, 

 chooses a branch of briar or bramble, in the pith of 

 which she excavates a canal about a foot long and one 



^ Kcaum. vi. 3'J-50, Mon, Ap. Jngl. i. 189. Jpis * * «. ". '^. 



