34 THE LIFE OF AN INSECT. 



respects exibiting an amount of mechanical and 

 mathematical skill never sufficiently to be admired, 

 she now deposits the minute egg in it which is to 

 become the toilsome, busy, patient, and clever being, 

 the full-grown insect of her own species. Mind- 

 ful of its future wants, she then compounds a 

 delicate mass of pink conserve, which she collects 

 from thistles, and subsequently stops up each cell 

 with thin pieces of leaf, as exactly round as if 

 they had been cut out with a punch, or by means 

 of some mathematical instrument. 



Reaumur says he often, in the month of May, 

 on looking at his rose-trees, detected these insects 

 at their work ; all he had to do was, to stand and 

 patiently watch by the side of a tree, the leaves of 

 which exhibited the singular marks made by this 

 insect. Many times have the same appearances 

 arrested our attention, and without doubt that of 

 the reader. The spectacle of insect ingenuity 

 which it affords well promises to repay a little 

 exertion in endeavouring to find out the nest to 

 which the pieces are conveyed, and some neigh- 

 bouring post or footpath will probably discover it 

 to us after a sharp scrutiny. Sometimes the insect 

 makes a bad choice of a leaf; it may be, perhaps, 



