254 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



even in window frames. She first bores obliquely 

 into the wood with her strong mandibles, and 

 then follows the direction of the fibres, forming a 

 hole or tunnel of more than a foot in length, and 

 half an inch in diameter. At the inner end of this 

 pipe she deposits an egg, along with a sufficient 

 store of honey and farina, for the support of her 

 future offspring ; and covering it with a thin par- 

 tition, made of the particles of wood she had 

 scooped out and cemented together with wax, 

 she proceeds to deposit another egg and another 

 supply of provision ; and so on till the whole pipe is 

 full. I must also tell you, that from the innermost 

 cell she had previously bored a small channel 

 to the outside of the wood, as a kind of back 

 door^ by which the young produced from the first 

 laid eggs should escape in succession, each of 

 them instinctively piercing the partition in the 

 right direction. But now, mamma, for my 

 fact : there is a small species of beetle that 

 watches the operations of the bee, and slily de- 

 posits its egg also in the cell. If this egg should 

 escape the vigilance of the poor bee, it is hatched 

 into a larva before her own eggs, and consuming 

 all the food she had so industriously prepared, 

 the right owner of the dwelling perishes. 



The wood-boring-bee reminded my uncle of 

 the teredo or ship-worm, which destroys the 

 planks on ships' bottoms, by piercing them in all 

 directions ; and he told us that the ingenious Mr. 



