180 HABITATIONS OF ANIMALS. 



fix a habitation for her future progeny, she goes in quest of 

 proper materials. The nest to be constructed must consist, of 

 a species of mortar, of which sand is the basis. She knows, 

 like human builders, that every kind of sand is not equally 

 proper for making good mortar. She goes, therefore, to a bed 

 of sand, and selects, grain by grain, the kind which is best to 

 answer her purpose. With her teeth, which are as large and 

 as strong as those of the honey-bee, she examines and brings 

 together several grains. But sand alone will not make mortar. 

 Recourse must be had to a cement similar to the slacked lime 

 employed by masons. Our bee is unacquainted with lime, 

 but she possesses an equivalent in her own body. From her 

 mouth she throws out a viscid liquor, with which she moistens 

 the first grain pitched upon. To this grain she cements a 

 second, which she moistens in the same manner, and to the 

 former two she attaches a third, and so on till she has formed 

 a mass as large as the shot usually employed to kill hares. 

 This mass she carries off in her teeth to the place she had 

 chosen for erecting her nest, and makes it the foundation of 

 the first cell. In this manner she labors incessantly till the 

 whole cells are completed a work which is generally accom- 

 plished in five or six days. All the cells are similar, and nearly 

 equal in dimensions. Before they are covered, their figure 

 resembles that of a thimble. She never begins to make a 

 second till the first be finished. Each cell is about an inch 

 high, and nearly half an inch in diameter. But the labor 

 of building is not the only one this female bee has to under- 

 go. When a cell has been raised to one half or two thirds 

 of its height, another occupation commences. She seems to 

 know the quantity of food that will be necessary to nourish 

 the young that is to proceed from the egg, from its exclu- 

 sion till it acquires its full growth, and passes into the chrys- 

 alis state. The food which is prepared for the support of 

 the young worm consists of the farina or powder of flowers, 

 diluted with honey, which forms a kind of pap. Before the 

 cell is entirely finished, the mason-bee collects from the 

 flowers, and deposits in the cell, a large quantity of farina, 

 and afterwards disgorges upon it as much honey as dilutes 

 it, and forms it into a kind of paste, or sirup. When this 

 operation is performed, she completes her cell, and, after 

 depositing an egg in it, covers the mouth of it with the same 

 mortar she uses in building her nest. The egg is now inclos- 

 ed on all sidesjn a walled habitation hermetically sealed. A 

 small quantity of air, however, gets admission to the worm, 



