66 Insect Architecture. 



the nest. She begins her work at the bottom, which she 

 overlays with three or four leaves in thickness, and the sides 

 have never less than two. When she finds that the piece 

 she has brought is too large to fit the place intended, she 

 cuts off what is superfluous, and carries away the shreds. 

 By cutting the fresh petal of a poppy with a pair of scissors, 

 we may perceive the difficulty of keeping the piece free from 

 wrinkles and shrivelling ; but the bee knows how to spread 

 the pieces which she uses as smooth as glass. 



When she has in this manner hung the little chamber 

 all around with this splendid scarlet tapestry, of which she 

 is not sparing, but extends it even beyond the entrance, 

 she then fills it with the pollen of flowers mixed with honey, 

 to the height of about half an inch. In this magazine of 

 provisions for her future progeny she lays an egg, and over 

 it folds down the tapestry of poppy-petals from above. The 

 upper part is then filled in with earth; but Latreille says 

 he has observed more than one cell constructed in a single 

 excavation. This may account for Reaumur's describing 

 them as sometimes seven inches deep ; a circumstance which 

 Latreille, however, thinks very surprising. 



It will, perhaps, be impossible ever to ascertain, beyond 

 a doubt, whether the tapestry-bee is led to select the bril- 

 liant petals of the poppy from their colour, or from any 

 other quality they may possess, of softness or of warmth, 

 for instance. Reaumur thinks that the largeness, united 

 with the flexibility of the poppy-leaves, determines her 

 choice. Yet it is not improbable that her eye may be 

 gratified by the appearance of her nest ; that she may 

 possess a feeling of the beautiful in colour, and may look 

 with complacency upon the delicate hangings of the apart- 

 ment which she destines for her offspring. Why should 

 not an insect be supposed to have a glimmering of the value 

 of ornament? How can we pronounce, from our limited 

 notion of the mode in which the inferior animals think and 

 act, that their gratifications are wholly bounded by the 

 positive utility of the objects which surround them ? Why 

 does a dog howl at the sound of a bugle, but because it 



