ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



out of the question, it would obviously be particularly 

 open to dangers of weather and natural enemies. But 

 here the most powerful of its instincts steps in to its 



aid, the instinct that has 

 for its object preservation 

 of the species. Gifted with 

 what seems almost mira- 

 culous foresight, many in- 

 sects, at the expense of 

 incalculable labour, prepare 

 a home, comprising not 

 only an abode but a store- 

 house of food, where their 

 offspring, which they may 

 or may not be destined to 

 see, and whose habits are 

 entirely unlike the parents', 

 may in safety, as complete 

 as possible, pass through 

 the whole series of infantile 

 helplessness, and emerge 

 from it to take their place 

 in and cope with the world, 

 only when they have at- 

 tained to the perfect form. 

 This instinct is in other 

 cases exercised by insects 

 for their own accommoda- 

 tion, for their larval, pupal, or imago conditions ; the 

 habitations being merely refuges or shelters, or afford- 

 ing board in addition to lodgment. For these purposes 

 .some burrow subterranean galleries in the ground, some 



FIG. 5. Profile view of nest of a 

 Mining Bee {Andrena vicina, 

 Smith), which builds her nest in 

 grassy fields, (a) Oldest cell contain- 

 ing pupa ; (b b) cells containing larvae ; 

 (c) cell containing pollen-mass, and 

 e gg ; GO the most recent cell con- 

 taining a freshly deposited pollen- 

 mass ; (e) the beginning of a cell ; 

 (/) the level of the ground ; from 

 Packard. 



