528 



HISTORY OF INSECTS. 



xvherein it makes round holes, five or six inches 

 deep ; the mouth being narrow, and only just 

 sufficient to admit the little inhabitant. 



It is amusing enough to observe the patience 

 and assiduity with which they labour. They 

 carry out all the earth, grain by grain, to the 

 mouth of the hole, where it forms a little hil- 

 lock ; an Alps, compared to the power of the 

 artist by which it is raised. Sometimes the 

 walks of a garden are found undermined by 

 their labours : some of the holes running 

 directly downward, others horizontally beneath 

 the surface. They lay up in these cavities 

 provisions for their young, which consist of a 

 paste that has the appearance of corn, and is 

 of a sweetish taste. 



The Leaf-cutting Bees make their nest and 



lay their eggs among bits of leaves, very arti- 

 ficially placed in holes in the earth, of about 

 the length of a tooth-pick case. They make 

 the bits of leaves of a roundish form, and with 

 them line the inside of their habitations. This 

 tapestry is still further lined by a reddish kind 

 of paste, somewhat sweet or acid. These bees 

 are of various kinds ; those that build their 

 nests with chestnut leaves are as big as drones, 

 but those of the rose-tree are smaller than the 

 common bee. 1 



The Wall-Bees are so called because they 

 make their nests in walls, of a kind of silky 

 membrane with which they fill up the vacu- 

 ities between the small stones which form the 

 sides of their habitation. Their apartment 

 consists of several cells placed end to end, each 

 in the shape of a woman's thimble. Though 

 the web which lines this habitation is thick 

 and warm, yet it is transparent, and of a 

 whitish colour. This substance is supposed 

 to be spun from the animal's body. The 

 males and females are of a size, but the former 

 are without a sting. To these varieties of the 

 bee kind might be added several others, which 

 are all different in their nature, but not 

 sufficiently distinguished to excite curiosity. 2 



1 A species of the leaf-cutting or upholsterer bee is 

 called the poppy. bee, from its selecting the scarlet petals 

 of the poppy as tapestry for its cells. Kirby and Spence 

 express their doubts whether it is indigenous to this 

 country : but Mr Rennie is almost certain that he saw 

 the nests in Scotland. The poppy -bee may be known 

 by its being rather more than a third of an inch long, of 

 a black colour, studded on the head and back with red- 

 dish gray hairs ; the belly being gray and silky, and the 

 rings margined with gray above, the second and third 

 having an impressed transversal line. 



s The Rev. Mr Kirbv has discovered that there are 



CHAP. III. 



OP THE WASP. 



HOWEVER similar many insects may be in 

 appearance, this does not imply a similitude 

 in their history. The bee and the wasp re- 

 semble each other very strongly, yet, in ex- 

 amining their manner and their duration, they 

 differ very widely : the bee labours to lay up 

 honey, and lives to enjoy the fruits of its in- 

 dustry : the wasp appears equally assiduous : 

 but only works for posterity, as the habitation 

 is scarcely completed when the inhabitant 

 dies. 



The wasp 3 is well known to be a winged 



no less than two hundred and twenty -one distinct species 

 of bees. He divides the Linnsean genus into mellitta 

 and apis, distinguishing them by their tongues ; the in- 

 sects of the first having short flattish inflected tongues. 



We shall here merely specify the Carding-Bee, as one 

 of peculiar interest, and no ways uncommon about our 

 villages. This bee is yellow, with the hair of the throat 

 somewhat fawn-coloured. The carding-bees nearly al) 

 perish in winter ; a few of the females only survive. 

 These usually make their appearance early in spring, as 

 soon as the catkins of the willows are in blossom ; upon 

 which, at this time, they may commonly be seen collect- 

 ing honey from the female, and pollen from the male 

 catkins. The neuters do not appear till the spring is 

 somewhat advanced, and the males are most common in 

 autumn, when the thistles are in blossom, upon the 

 flowers of which they are abundant, sometimes appear- 

 ing to be asleep or torpid, and at other times acting as if 

 they were intoxicated with the sweets they have been 

 imbibing. When these insects of any sex are walking 

 on the ground, if a finger be moved to them, they lift up 

 three legs on one side, by way of defence, which give 

 them a very grotesque appearance. Their nests are 

 usually formed in meadows and pastures, sometimes in 

 groves and hedge-rows, where the soil is entangled with 

 roots ; but now and then these are found in heaps of 

 stones. When they do not meet with an accidental 

 cavity ready made, they excavate one themselves with 

 great labour. This they cover with a thick convex 

 vault of moss, sometimes casting the interior surface 

 with a kind of coarse wax, to keep out the wet. At the 

 lower part of the nest there is an opening for the inhab- 

 itants to go in and out at. This entrance is often through 

 a long gallery or covered way, a foot or upwards in length, 

 by which the nest is more effectually concealed from ob- 

 servation. The mode in which they transport the moss 

 which they employ in the formation of their nest is 

 singular. When they have discovered a parcel fitted to 

 that purpose, and conveniently situated, they place them- 

 selves in a line, with their backs turned towards the nest. 

 The foremost lays hold of some with their jaws, and 

 clears it, bit by bit, with her fore-feet. When this is 

 sufficiently disentangled, she drives it with her feet 

 under her belly, and as far as possible beyond, to the 

 second bee. The second, in like manner, pushes it on 

 to the third, and so on. Thus small heaps of prepared 

 moss are conveyed to the nest by a file of four or five in- 

 sects, where they are wrought with the greatest dexterity 

 by those that remain within. The nests are often six 

 or seven inches in diameter, and elevated to the height 

 of four or five inches above the surface of the ground. 



8 The Wasps (Vespa), like the ants and bees, live in 

 society. They are comparable to the latter for their in- 



