44 SANTAREM. Chap. I. 



as the particles are successively added. The little hods- 

 men soon have as much as they can carry, and they then 

 fly off. I was for some time puzzled to know what the 

 bees did with the clay ; but I had afterwards plenty 

 of opportunity for ascertaining. They construct their 

 combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or 

 perpendicular banks, and the clay is required to build 

 up a wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of 

 a small orifice for their own entrance and exit. Most 

 kinds of Meliponae are in this way masons as well as 

 v workers in wax and pollen-gatherers. One little species 

 (undescribed) not more than two lines long, builds a 

 neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid 

 substance outside the entrance to its hive, besides 

 blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is 

 situated. The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, 

 and at the entrance a number of the pigmy bees are 

 always stationed apparently acting as sentinels. 



It is remarkable that none of the American bees have 

 attained that high degree of architectural skill in the 

 construction of their comb which is shown by the Euro- 

 pean hive bee. The wax cells of the Meliponae are 

 generally oblong, showing only an approximation to the 

 hexagonal shape in places where several of them are 

 built in contact. It would appear that the Old "World 

 has produced in bees, as well as in other families of 

 animals, far more advanced forms than the tropics of 

 the New World. 



A hive of the Melipona fasciculata, which I saw 

 opened, contained about two quarts of pleasantly-tasted 

 liquid honey. The bees, as already remarked, have no 



