HABITATIONS OK INSECTS. 501 



propolis that was most conveniently situated, and 

 breaking it by a sudden jerk of the head, take it with 

 the claws of their fore-legs, and then, enteringthe cell, 

 place it at the angles and sides, &c. which they had 

 previously planished. The yellow colour, however, is 

 not given by the propolis, and it is not certain to what 

 it is owing. — The bees sometimes mix wax and pro- 

 polis and make an amalgam, known to the ancients and 

 called by them Metis and Pissoceron^ which they use 

 in rebuilding cells that have been destroyed, in order 

 to strengthen and support the edifice''. 



We know but little of the proceedings of the species 

 of bees not indigenous to Europe, which live in socie- 

 ties and construct combs like thai cultivated by us. A 

 traveller in Brazil mentions one there which builds 

 a kind of natural hive : '■■ On an excursion towards 

 upper Tapagippe," says he, ''and skirting the dreary 

 woods which extend to the interior, I observed the 

 trees more loaded with bees' nests than even in the 

 neighbourhood of Porto Seguro. They consist of a 

 ponderous shell of clay, cemented similarly to martins' 

 UGsts, swelling from high trees about a foot thick, and 

 forming an oval mass full two feet in diameter. When 

 broken, the wax is arranged as in our hives, and the 

 honey abundant''." 



Humhh-hees are the only tribe besides the hive-bee, 

 that in tliis part of the world construct nests by the 



* Nouvelhs Obstrvtifioni stir les Jbeilles, par Francois Iliiber, ii. 101- 

 i2S8. I observed the b e» rolleciiiif; propolis this spring from the buds 

 of Pnpidus bahamiferii. 



" Lindley in R. 31ililanj Chronick, March 1815. 449, 



