ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



(see Fig. 6), when she closes the entrance, shutting all 

 well in lest the contents should fall victim to some 

 unscrupulous enemy. 



Obviously a considerable interval of time must 

 supervene between the laying of the first and the last 

 egg, while the bee is engaged in the herculean labour 

 of building up the various successive cell-partitions 

 ring upon ring, particle by particle and in pro- 

 visioning the occupants of the intervening cells, 

 involving long toil and diligent search. Naturally the 

 lowermost egg must turn into grub, and pupa, and 

 perfect insect, long before that finally deposited. 

 What then becomes of it ? Its mandibles are not 

 strong enough to pierce a passage out through the 

 wood. It is impossible that it can gnaw its way 

 through the eleven superincumbent cells to the 

 original entrance without damaging their immature 

 inmates ; and equally impossible that it can remain 

 imprisoned till they one and all have effected their 

 escape. The mother provides against this con- 

 tingency. She constructs not only one point of 

 access to her dwelling, at the farther end she likewise 

 makes a lateral horizontal opening, a kind of back- 

 door, and chokes it with sawdust paste, which being 

 soft will readily yield to the tender jaws of her 

 offspring. Through this door the first-born emerges 

 into day, as in fact does each insect, one after the 

 other in succession in priority of development ; for 

 by an exquisite arrangement, every grub when about 

 to turn to pupa places itself in its cell head down- 

 wards, and thus in a position eventually to break- 

 open the cell in that direction. 



