HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 443 



serrate margin of the leaf from which it was taken, which, 

 as the pieces are made to lap one over the other, is kept 

 on the outside, and that which has been cut within. The 

 little animal now forms a third coating of similar mate- 

 rials, the middle of which, as the most skilful workman 

 would do in similar circumstances, she places over the 

 margins of those that form the first tube, thus covering 

 and strengthening the junctures. Repeating the same 

 process, she gives a fourth and sometimes a fifth coating 

 to her nest, taking care, at the closed end or narrow ex- 

 tremity of the cell, to bend the leaves so as to form a 

 convex termination. Having thus finished a cell, her 

 next business is to fill it to within half a line of the ori- 

 fice, with a rose-coloured conserve composed of honey 

 and pollen, usually collected from the flowers of thistles; 

 and then having deposited her egg, she closes the orifice 

 with three pieces of leaf so exactly circular, that a pair 

 of compasses could not define their margin with more 

 truth ; and coinciding so precisely with the walls of the 

 cell, as to be retained in their situation merely by the 

 nicety of their adaptation. After this covering is fitted in, 

 there remains still a concavity which receives the convex 

 end of the succeeding cell ; and in this manner the in- 

 defatigable little animal proceeds until she has completed 

 the six or seven cells which compose her cylinder. 



The process which one of these bees employs in cut- 

 ting the pieces of leaf that compose her nest is worthy of 

 attention. Nothing can be more expeditious : she is not 

 longer about it than we should be with a pair of scissors. 

 After hovering for some moments over a rose-bush, as 

 if to reconnoitre the ground, the bee alights upon the 

 leaf which she has selected, usually taking her station 



