HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 11 



breadth and nearly the length of the cell. The 

 nursing bees now seal up the cell, with a light 

 brown cover, externally more or less convex, (the 

 cap of a drone-cell is more convex than that of a 

 worker,) and thus differing from that of a honey- 

 cell, which is paler and somewhat concave. It is 

 no sooner perfectly inclosed than it begins to la- 

 bour, alternately extending and shortening its 

 body, whilst it lines the cell by spinning round 

 itself, after the manner of the silk- worm, a whitish 

 silky film or cocoon, by which it is encased, as it 

 were, in a pod or pellicle. " The silken thread 

 employed in forming this covering, proceeds from 

 the middle part of the under lip, and is in fact 

 composed of two threads gummed together as 

 they issue from the two adjoining orifices of the 

 spinner *." When it has undergone this change, 

 it has usually borne the name of nymph or pupa. 



It may appear somewhat extraordinary that a 

 creature which takes its food so voraciously prior 

 to its assuming the pupa state, should live so long 

 without food, after that assumption : but a little 

 consideration will perhaps abate our wonder ; for 

 when the insect has attained the state of pupa, it 

 has arrived at its full growth, and probably the 

 nutriment, taken so greedily, is to serve as a store 

 for developing the perfect insect. 



* Kirby and Spence. 



