INSECTS. 



127 



itidnstiy aiul happiness, that all have felt what Archdeacon 

 I'aley has well expressed, "a Bee amongst the llowers in 

 spring is one of the cheerfuUest objects that can be looked upon. 

 Its life appears to be all enjoyment ; so busy and so pleased." 

 Bees may, like Wasps, be divided into the solitaiy and the 

 social. Some of the solitary Bees, Ukc the solitary Wasps, 

 construct their cells in a cylindrical hole, scooped out of a dry 

 bank ; or in one of the vacant spaces of a stone wall. Others 

 select the hollows of old trees, and have occasionally been 

 found in the inside of the lock of a garden gate, taking the 

 precaution, however, to cover their nests with the woolly 

 portions of certain plants, and thus to secure, for their young, 

 a more equable temperature.* A third frrnup has been termed 

 Carpenter Bees, as wood 

 forms the material in 

 which they excavate their 

 nests. Among these, the 

 female of one of our native 

 species "chooses a branch 

 of brier or bramble, in the 

 pith of which she exca- 

 vates a canal about a foot ^'»- 109— Xyiocopa. ok Carpkxteb Bke. 



long, and one line,"f or sometimes more, in diameter, with 

 from eight to twelve cells, separated from each other by par- 

 titions of particles of pith glued together." But perhaps the 

 most remarkable insect of the group is the Xylocopa (Figs. 

 109, 110), a large species be- itVf^liiflfe^Si^'V 



longing to southern Europe, ir4mm^^^9fl^^ -^ 

 and having wings of a beautiful 

 violet colour. In the decaying 

 espaliers, or other wood-work, 

 she hollows out a tunnel of 

 twelve or fifteen inches, which 

 she divides into ten or twelve 

 distinct apartments, in each of 

 which she deposits an egg and 

 a quantity of honey and pollen, 

 for the support of the ftiture 



grub. *''8- "O- — Nrst of Xylocopa. 



rhis mast be a work of time, so that it is obvious the last 



• Kirby and Spence, vol. i. p.-ifje 437 — 439. 

 t A line is the twelfth part of an inch. 



