NESTS. 



themselves exclusively to one particular pursuit. We must, 

 nevertheless, leave the reader to judge how fa^r such a statement 

 is chargeable with the exaggeration of enthusiasm, when he shall 

 have duly pondered upon all that we shall explain to him in the 

 following pages ; and if, perchance, his wonder be raised to the 

 point of incredulity, that sentiment will be repressed when he 

 remembers, who taught the bee ! 



39. Bees, like the human race, sometimes exercise their industry 

 individually and sometimes collectively. Their habitations also are 

 sometimes constructed exclusively for their young, and may be 

 called nests rather than dwellings. This is more especially the case 

 with solitary insects. In the case of social bees, which live together 

 in organised communities, the habitations are generally adapted as 

 well for the members of the colony themselves, as for their progeny. 



40. The operations of these solitary insects, though exhibiting, 

 as will presently appear, marvellous skill, are infinitely inferior to 

 those of the social bees. We shall, therefore, first notice the 

 more simple labours of the former. 



41. Among the most inartificial structures executed by the 

 solitary species, are the habitations of the colletes succinctee, 

 fodiens, &c. The situation chosen in these cases is either a bank 

 of dry earth, or the cavities of mud walls. A cylindrical hole 

 pierced in a horizontal direction about two inches in length is 

 first produced. The bee makes in this three or four thimble- 

 shaped cells, each of which is about a sixth of an inch in diameter 

 and half an inch long, fitting one into another like thimbles. The 

 materials of these cells is a silky membrane resembling gold- 

 beater's leaf, but much finer, and so very thin and transparent 

 that the form and colour of any enclosed object can be seen 

 through it. This material is secreted by the insect. When the 

 first of these cells is completed, the insect deposits in it an egg and 

 fills it with a pasty substance, which is a mixture of pollen and 

 honey. When this is done she proceeds to form the second cell, 

 inserting its end in the mouth of the first as above described, and 

 in like manner lays an egg in it and deposits with it a like store 

 of food for the future young. This goes on until the cylindrical 

 hole receives three or four cells which nearly fill it. The bee 

 then carefully stops up the mouth of the hole with earth. 



42. The situations in which these simple nests are placed are 

 very various. They are not only found as above stated in banks 

 of earth and mud walls, and the interstices of stone walls, but 

 often also in the branches of trees. Thus a series of them was 

 found by Grew in the pith of an old elder branch. 



43. Some varieties of the bee, such as the anthidium manicatum, 

 dispense with the labour of boring the cylindrical holes above 



c 2 19 



