278 ANIMAL LIFE 



very unlike the females, and there are no workers to 

 divide the labour of cell-making and honey gathering 

 from the work of the queen bee in founding of the 

 race. Unlike the solitary wasps, none of them use 

 animal food for the nourishment of their young. 

 Honey and pollen have to be stored in increasing 

 quantity as the larvae become more voracious and 

 insistent in their demands. 



FIG. 55.- The Leaf-cutter Bee (Megachile) that drills its burrows in coastal 

 pathways. The upper figure with expanded tufted legs is the male.-- 

 (From a specimen in the Manchester Museum.") 



Of these solitary bees the dark-coloured garden 

 Prosopis is perhaps the most interesting. Not that 

 she is impressive in appearance, or especially attrac- 

 tive in behaviour. She has hardly a hair to hide 

 her nakedness. Her black and white body bears no 

 baskets to carry pollen. She cannot produce wax 

 nor dig dark earth, nor bore wood ; her jaws and limbs 

 are too feeble, and her tongue too short. Poverty- 



