82 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



cells at the mouth of the shell, produce males, which are 

 developed before the female insects, who inhabit the 

 end of the whorl. The females therefore pass out 

 through the deserted male premises above them. 



The Megachile are celebrated for the beauty and 

 singularity of their nests. This is the most cosmo- 

 politan of all the genera of bees ; numerous alike 

 in the tropics and the colder latitudes, extending as 

 far northwards as Hudson's Bay. Their peculiarity, 

 whence is derived their generic title, literally signi- 

 fying " large-muzzled," lies in their long and powerful 

 mandibles, and with these instruments the species 

 dubbed the " Leaf-cutters " perform the clever feat 

 that their name implies. Under the popular term are 

 included the British and all the known European 

 specimens. These agree in the habit of making 

 curious burrows for their young, in the earth or in 

 wood, lined with cuttings of leaves, or the petals of 

 flowers, abstracted from plants with wonderful pre- 

 cision and accuracy. 



M. centuncularis, a little bee, is endowed with 

 striking intelligence, though it is by no means remark- 

 able to look at, like many another clever creature, 

 for Nature, it would seem, is ever loth to cumulate her 

 choicest gifts, and generally balances any lavish sup- 

 ply of blessing, physical or mental, by corresponding 

 deprivation of the quality opposed to that bestowed. 

 The bee usually begins, but she is capricious in 

 choice of site, by excavating a cylindrical tunnel in 

 tolerably solid earth. It is bored in a perpendicular 

 direction for a few inches, and afterwards enlarged 

 into a horizontal chamber of good size. Within the 



