494 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



rapidly moving its head, it moulds in that side of the 

 wall a cavity which is to form the base of one of the 

 cells to the diameter of which it is equal. When it has 

 worked some minutes it departs, and another takes its 

 place, deepening the cavity, heightening its lateral 

 margins by heaping up the wax to right and left by 

 means of its teeth and fore-feet, and giving them a more 

 upright form. More than twenty bees successively 

 employ themselves in this work. When arrived at a 

 certain point, other bees begin on the yet untouched 

 and opposite side of the mass ; and commencing the 

 bottom of two cells, are in turn relieved by others. While 

 still engaged in this labour, the wax-makers return and 

 add to the mass, augmenting its extent every way, the 

 nurse-bees again continuing tlieir operations. — After 

 having worked the bottoms of the cells of the tirst row 

 into their proper forms, they polish them and give them 

 their finish, while others begin the outline of a new 

 series. 



The cells themselves, or prisms which result from 

 the re-union and meeting of tlie sides, are next con- 

 structed. These are engrafted on the borders of the 

 cavities hollowed in the mass. The bees begin them 

 by making the contour of the bottoms, which at first is 

 unequal, of equal height: thus all the margins of the 

 cells offer an uniformly level surface from their first 

 origin, and until they Iiave acquired their proper length. 

 The sides are heightened in an order analogous to that 

 which the insects follow in finishing the bottoms of the 

 cells ; and the length of these tubes is so perfectly pro- 

 portioned that there is no observable inequality be- 

 tween them.— It is to be remarked, that though the 



