500 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



plies the larvae with a daily provision, as has been de- 

 scribed in a former letter, until they are sufficiently 

 grown to spin the cocoons before spoken of. Lastly, in 

 all the corners of the combs, and especially in the mid- 

 dle, we observe a considerable number of small goblet- 

 like vessels, filled with honey and pollen, which are not, 

 as in the case of the hive-bee, the fabrication of the 

 workers, but are chiefly the empty cocoons left by the 

 larvae. It falls to the workers, however, to cut off the 

 fragments of silk from the orifice of the cocoon, which, 

 after giving it a regular circular form, they strengthen 

 by a ring or elevated tube of wax made in a different 

 shape by different species ; and to coat them internally 

 with a lining of the same material. They even occasion- 

 ally construct honey-pots entirely of wax a . 



The most curious circumstance in the construction of 

 these nests, is the mode in which the bees transport the 

 moss employed in forming the roof. When they have 

 discovered a parcel of this material conveniently situated 

 upon the ground, five or six insects place themselves 

 upon it in a file, turning the hinder part of their bodies 

 towards the quarter to which it is meant to be conveyed. 

 The first takes a small portion, and with its jaws and 

 fore-legs as it were felts it together. When the fibres 

 are sufficiently entangled, it pushes them under its body 

 by means of the first pair of legs ; the intermediate pair 

 receives the moss, and delivers it to the last, which pro- 

 trudes it as far as possible beyond the anus. When by 

 this process the insect has formed behind it a small ball 

 of well-carded moss, the next bee pushes it to the third, 

 which consigns it in like manner to that behind it; and 



* Huber, Linn. Tr. vi. 215-298. 



