HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 251 



family, like the preceding, cover the walls of their cells with a coating of 

 leaves, but are content with a more sober colour, generally selecting for 

 their hangings the leaves of trees, especially of the rose, whence they have 

 been known by the name of the leaf-cutter bees. They differ also from 

 M. Papaveris in excavating longer burrows, and filling them with several 

 thimble-shaped cells composed of portions of leaves so curiously convo- 

 luted, that, if we were ignorant in what school they have been taught to 

 construct them, we should never credit their being the work of an insect. 

 Their entertaining history, so long ago as 1670, attracted the attention of 

 our countrymen Ray, Lister, Willughby, and Sir Edward King ; but 

 we are indebted for the most complete account of their procedures to 

 Reaumur. 



The mother-bee first excavates a cylindrical hole eight or ten inches 

 long, in a horizontal direction, either in the ground or in the trunk of a 

 rotten willow-tree, or occasionally in other decaying wood. This cavity 

 she fills with six or seven cells wholly composed of portions of leaf, of the 

 shape of a thimble, the convex end of one closely fitting into the open end 

 of another. Her first process is to form the exterior coating, which is com- 

 posed of three or four pieces of larger dimensions than the rest, and of an 

 oval form. The second coating is formed of portions of equal size, narrow at 

 one end, but gradually widening towards the other, where the width equals 

 half the length. One side of these pieces is the serrate margin of the leaf 

 from which it was taken, which, as the pieces are made to lap one over the 

 other, is kept on the outside, and that which has been cut within. The 

 little animal now forms a third coating of similar materials, the middle of 

 which, as the most skilful workman would do in similar circumstances, 

 she places over the margins of those that form the first tube, thus covering 

 and strengthening the junctures. Repeating the same process, she gives a 

 fourth and sometimes a fifth coating to her nest, taking care, at the closed 

 end or narrow extremity of the cell, to bend the leaves so as to form a 

 convex termination. Having thus finished a cell, her next business is to 

 fill it to within half a line of the orifice with a rose-coloured conserve com- 

 posed of honey and pollen, usually collected from the flowers of thistles ; 

 $nd then having deposited her egg, she closes the orifice with three pieces 

 of leaf so exactly circular, that a pair of compasses could not define^ 

 their margin with more truth ; and coinciding so precisely with the walls of 

 the cell, as to be retained in their situation merely by the nicety of their 

 adaptation. After this covering is fitted in, there remains still a concavity 

 which receives the convex end of the succeeding cell ; and in this manner 

 the indefatigable little animal proceeds until she has completed the six 

 or seven cells which compose her cylinder. 



The process which one of these bees employs in cutting the pieces of 

 leaf that compose her nest is worthy of attention. Nothing can be more 

 expeditious : she is not longer about it than we should be with a pair of 

 scissors. After hovering for some moments over a rose-bush, as if to recon- 

 noitre the ground, the bee alights upon the leaf which she has selected, usually 

 taking her station upon its edge, so that the margin passes between her 

 legs. With her strong mandibles she cuts without intermission in a curve 

 line, so as to detach a triangular portion. When this hangs by the last 

 fibre, lest its weight should carry her to the ground, she balances her 

 little wings for flight, and the very moment it parts from the leaf flies off 

 with it in triumph ; the detached portion remaining bent between her legs 





