NOTES BY THE WAY. 173 



mouse, had been the next tenants, for the finish of 

 the interior suggested their dainty taste. But when 

 I found it, its sole occupant was a bumble-bee the 

 mother or queen-bee, just planting her colony. She 

 buzzed very loud and complainingly, and stuck up 

 her legs in protest against my rude inquisitiveness, 

 but refused to vacate the premises. She had only 

 one sack or cell constructed, in which she had depos- 

 ited her first egg, and beside that a large loaf of 

 bread, probably to feed the young brood with, as 

 they should be hatched. It looked like Boston 

 brown bread, but I examined it, and found it to be 

 a mass of dark-brown pollen, quite soft and pasty. 

 In fact, it was unleavened bread, and had not been 

 got at the baker's. A few weeks later, if no accident 

 befell her, she had a good working colony of a dozen 

 or more bees. 



This was not an unusual incident. Our bumble- 

 bee, so far as I have observed, invariably appropri- 

 ates a mouse-nest for the site of its colony, never 

 excavating a place in the ground, nor conveying ma- 

 terials fora nest, to be lined with wax, like the Eu- 

 ropean species. Many other of our wild creatures 

 take up with the leavings of their betters or strong- 

 ers. Neither the skunk nor the rabbit digs his own 

 hole, but takes up with that of a woodchuck, or else 

 hunts out a natural den among the rocks. In Eng- 

 land the rabbit burrows in the ground to such an ex- 

 Vent that in places the earth is honey-combed by 

 .hem, and the walker steps through the surface into 



