SOCIAL ECONOMY. 231 
the cocoons are thickest. Hunter* has reckoned as 
many as twenty separate linings, which, though they 
occupied little space when dry, swelled up when 
moistened with water so as to rise to the mouth of 
the cell. From the fact of the sac being quite closed 
at the bottom it is clear that the cocoon is com- 
menced at a time when the small size of the larva 
allowed her to move about freely in the cell. But 
even then the lining could scarcely have been made 
so complete if the cell had not been placed horizon- 
tally, instead of vertically like the wasp’s. A wasp- 
larva has to hold tightly to the wall of her cell all 
the time she is spinning, to prevent her falling out. 
But the connection of the bee-larva to the cell is 
altogether less firm than that of the wasp. Huntert 
often found that the eggs and larve of his bees had 
been removed by the swarm from one cell to another. 
The inventory of the bee’s cell after the insect has 
flown seems at first sight very scanty, compared 
with that of the wasp. However, if we look close, 
we shall find everything there. Draw one cocoon 
very carefully away from another, and examine its 
rough end, outside, under water of course. On the 
yellow matter we shall find a whitish tuft, quite 
distinct in appearance from the cocoon membrane, 
which, from the fragments of tissues which it bears 
about it, is evidently a cast skin. Often a smaller 
and less composite membrane breaks away from 
this, which I believe, after careful examination, to be 
the egg-shell. 
This is just the same as we have seen in the wasp, 
* Hunter. ‘ Observations on Bees.’ Works. Vol. LV. p. 466. 
+ Op. eit. p, 440. 
