BUTTERFLIES. 567 



The melipona bees are the most numerous of the honey- 

 producing insects, their colonies being composed of vast 

 numbers of individuals. They are smaller than the English 

 hive-bee, and have no sting. The workers collect pollen as 

 do other bees, but a great number are employed in gathering 

 clay for forming walls as an outer protection to their nests. 

 They first scrape the clay with their fore-mandibles, passing 

 it on to the second pair of feet, and then to the large foliated 

 expansions of the hind-shanks, patting it in the process, till 

 the little hodsmen have as much as they can carry, when 

 they fly off with their loads to their nests. One species 

 builds a tubular gallery of clay of a trumpet shape at the 

 mouth. Here a number of the pigmy bees are stationed to 

 act the part of sentinels. 



Thus the melipona bees are masons as well as workers in 

 wax and pollen gatherers. Although they have no sting, 

 they defend their habitations, and bite furiously when dis- 

 turbed. Bates found forty-five species of these bees in 

 different parts of the country, and one hundred and forty of 

 other species. Several of them were attended by drones, 

 which deposit their ova in the cells of the working bees, 

 some of them having the dress and general appearance of 

 their victims. 



BUTTERFLIES. 



This is a region of magnificent butterflies. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Para alone seven hundred species have been 

 found. Many seldom leave the shady paths which pierce 

 the forests ; others, however, occasionally come forth into the 

 broad sunlight and more open glades. See the slender Morpho 

 menelaus, with splendid metallic blue wings seven inches in 

 expanse, flapping them as does a bird as it flies along. 



