370 INSECTS AT HOME. 



very interesting to watch a Carder Bee thus engaged. In 

 the early part of the present year, I watched for nearly an hour 

 the proceedings of a Carder Bee, who fortunately restricted 

 herself to a small patch of ground. The soil is very light, 

 partly covered with ferns, and on it are one or two oak trees, 

 one of large size. There is also plenty of moss within a few 

 yards, so that the locality is a very favourable one. As long- 

 as she was on the wing I had to be very quiet, as she would 

 have taken alarm at a sudden movement, but whenever she 

 settled I was able to approach her quite closely. She investi- 

 gated almost every inch of ground, trying it in all directions, 

 and apparently testing the character of the soil by scratching it 

 with her feet. At last, she evidently fixed upon a convenient 

 spot — a small hollow in the ground near the roots of an oak. 



She was so absorbed in her work, that I was able to kneel 

 down and watch her through a magnifying glass without dis- 

 turbing her. At last, I thought I would try a small practical 

 joke, and built over her a small hut of twigs and leaves. She was 

 still so preoccupied that she took no notice, until I pushed her 

 gently with a grass stem through the interstices of the hut. 

 This treatment roused her from her abstraction, and she 

 bounced up against the roof of the miniature hut in great 

 perturbation, at last forcing her way through it, and going off 

 at full speed and with an angry hum. 



When the Bee has fixed upon a suitable spot, she procures 

 some vegetable substance, generally moss, but sometimes dead 

 leaves, grass, fern-fronds, &c., and draws them through her 

 legs, much as wool is carded. With these materials she builds 

 a sort of low dome, so arranged as to harmonise with sur- 

 rounding objects, and look like a mere swelling of the ground. 

 Mr. F. Smith mentions an instance in which the Bee flew into 

 a stable, and carried off a quantity of horsehair, which she wove 

 into a nest as if it had been moss. In order to preserve the 

 interior from rain, she lines the dome with a coarse wax, similar 

 in nature, though not in quality, to that of the Hive Bee, and 

 under its protection she makes a series of cells. These cells 

 are not in the least like the delicate, sharply defined, hex- 

 agonal cells of the Hive Bee, but are oval, and distributed 

 almost at random. 



In them are laid the eggs which at first produce worker 

 Bees, they being needful in order to help the Queen Bee in 



