THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



695 



Its mouth with a lens while it was lying on 

 Tthc mortar. Every fresh pellet was brought 

 jn with a triumphant song, which changed to 

 si Cheerful busy hum when it alighted and 

 begun to work. The little bull of moist clay 

 was laid on the edge of the cell, and then 

 spread out around the circular rim, by means 

 of the lower lip guided by the mandibles. 

 The insect placed itself astride over the rim 

 to work, and, on finishing each addition to 

 the structure, took a turn round, patting the 

 sides with its feet inside and out, before fly- 

 ing off to gather a fresh pellet. It worked 

 only in sunny weather, and the previous 

 layer was sometimes not quite dry when the 

 new coating was added. The whole struc- 

 ture takes about a week to complete. I left 

 the place before the gay little builder had 

 quite finished her task ; she did not accom- 

 pany the canoe, although we moved along 

 the bank of the river very slowly. On open- 

 ing closed nests of this species, which are 

 common in the neighborhood of Mahica, I 

 always found them to be stocked with small 

 spiders of the genus Gastracantha, in the 

 usual half-dead state to which the mother 

 wasps reduce the insects which are to serve 

 -as food for their progeny. 



Besides the PelopaBus there were three or 

 four kinds of Trypoxylon, a genus also 

 found in Europe, and which some naturalists 

 have supposed to be parasitic, because the 

 legs are not furnished with the usual row of 

 strong bristles for digging, characteristic of 

 the family to which it belongs. The species 

 of Trypoxylon, however, are all building 

 wasps ; two of them which I observed (T. 

 .albitarse and an undescribed species) pro- 

 vision their nests with spiders, a third (T. 

 aurifrons) with small caterpillars. Their 

 habits are similar to those of the Pelopaeus : 

 namely, they carry off the clay in their man- 

 dibles, and have a different song when they 

 hasten away with the burden from that 

 which they sing while at work. Trypoxy- 

 lon albitarse, which is a large black kind, 

 three quarters of an inch in length, makes a 

 tremendous fuss while building its cell. It 

 often chooses the walls or doors of chambers 

 for this purpose, and when two or three are 

 at work in the same place their loud hum- 

 ming keeps the house in an uproar. The cell 

 is a tubular structure about three inches in 

 length. T. aurifrons, a much smaller spe- 

 cies, makes a neat little nest shaped like a 

 carafe ; building rows of them together in 

 the corners of verandas. 



But the most numerous and interesting of 

 the clay artificers are the workers of a species 

 of social bee, the Melipona fasciculata. Tho, 

 Melipona3 in tropical America take the 

 place of the true Api'des to which the Euro- 

 pean hive-bee belongs, and which are here 

 "unknown ; they are generally much smaller 

 insects than the hive-bees ana have no sting 

 The M. fasciculata is about a third shorter 

 than the Apis mellifica ; its colonies are com- 

 posed of an immense number of individuate. 

 Tke workers are generally seen collecting 

 pollen in the same way as other beefe bU% 



great numbers are employed gathering clay. 

 The rapidity and precision of their move- 

 ments while thus engaged are wonderful. 

 They first scrape the clay with their iaws; 

 the small portions gathered are then cleared 

 by the anterior paws and passed to the second 

 pair of feet, which in their turn, convey them 

 to the large foliated expansions of the hind 

 shanks, which are adapted normally in bees, 

 as every one knows, for the collection of 

 pollen. The middle feet pat the growing 

 pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep 

 them in a compact shape as the particles are 

 successively added. The little hodsmen soon 

 have as much as they can carry, and they 

 soon fly off. I was for some time puzzled to 

 know what the bees did with the clay ; but 

 I had afterward plenty of opportunity for as- 

 certaining. They construct their combs in 

 any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or per- 

 pendicular banks, and the clay is required 

 to build up a wall so as to close the gap, with 

 the exception of a small orifice for their own 

 entrance and exit. Most kinds of Meliponse 

 are in this way masons as well as workers in 

 wax and pollen-gatherers. One little species 

 (undescribed), not more than two lines long, 

 builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded 

 with some viscid substance, outside the en- 

 trance to its hive, besides blocking up the 

 crevice in the tree within which it is situated. 

 The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, 

 and at the entrance a number of the pigmy 

 bees are always stationed, apparentlv acting 

 as sentinels. 



A hive of the Mellipona fasciculata which 

 I saw opened, contained about two quarts 

 of pleasantly-tasted liquid honey. The bees, 

 as already remarked, have no sting, but they 

 bite furiously when their colonies are dis- 

 turbed. The Indian who plundered the hive 

 was completely covered by them , they took 

 a particular fancy to the hair of his head, and 

 fastened on it by hundreds. I found forty- 

 five species of these bees in different parts 

 of the country ; the largest was half an inoh 

 in length ; the smallest were extremely mi- 

 nute, some kinds being not more than one 

 twelfth of an inch in size. These tiny fel- 

 lows are often very troublesome in the woods, 

 on account of their familiarity ; for they 

 settle on one's face and hands, and, in crawl* 

 ing about, get into the eyes and mouth or 

 up the nostrils. 



The broad expansion of the hind shanks 

 of bees is applied in some species to other 

 uses besides the conveyance of clay and pol- 

 len. The female of the handsome golden 

 and black Euglossa Surinamensis has this 

 palette of very large size. This speciea 

 builds its solitary nest also in crevices qi 

 walls or trees ; but it closes up the chink 

 with fragments of dried leaves and sticks, 

 cemented together, instead of clay. It visits 

 the caju-trees, and gathers with its hind legs 

 a small quantity of the gum which exudes 

 from their trunks. To this it adds the other 

 materials required from the neighboring 

 bushes, and when laden flies off to its neat. 



