898 APIAN MASONRY. 



another yet allied class of builders. Here is a dome-shaped 

 tenement, composed apparently of mud or clay. Within it we 

 discover two separate cells or chambers " of the form and size 

 of a lady's thimble, finely polished, and of the colour of plaster 

 of Paris." This material is not clay, but apparently the mortar 

 of the wall on which, as we have said, the whole structure was 

 originally placed. The cells, with their outwork of conceal- 

 ment, were once the nurseries of young bees of a solitary 

 species, 1 and their mother, one of the "masons" of her tribe, 

 was the clever architect and patient builder of the entire 

 edifice. 



Now let us look at some specimens of insect travelling. Here 

 is a nest of a carpenter wasp." It is wrought in a piece of 

 wood, somewhat softened by decay, part, probably, of a post or 

 pale. The tunnel, which is more square than round, is smooth 

 within, chiselled as if by the tool of a veritable carpenter, and 

 divided into as many as six separate cells or compartments, of 

 which the partitions are no thicker than a card, and formed, 

 not of sawdust (that having been carefully removed), but 

 of kneaded clay, fetched as laboriously by the little builder, 

 who herein shows herself an adept in masonry as well as in 

 her own peculiar art. Within these cells, or some of them, 

 is a portion of pollen, with which the bee-mother supplies her 

 brood. 



We are handling now what may be looked upon as a perfect 

 chef-d'oeuvre in insect joinery. It is the nest of a third apian 

 carpenter, called, from the beautiful colour of her wings, the 

 violet bee. 3 She is not, indeed, a recognized native of our own 

 island ; but we can, nevertheless, in this her workmanship, 

 admire and do justice to her constructive skill. 



The material, wood, as in the former specimens, is, in this, 

 perforated by several tunnels cut for about an inch obliquely, 

 then in a perpendicular direction. Each of these tunnels is 



1 Anthophora retusa. 2 Of the genus Eumenes. 



3 Xylocopa violacea. 



