22 



CONVERSATIONS ON 



Ovipositor or Gimlet of the Gadfly, greatly magnified, with a claw and 

 part of the tube, distinct. 



" There is also a bee, boys, which is called 

 the carpenter-bee, because it is such an excel- 

 lent wood-borer. It commonly looks for some 

 old post, or dry plank, or withered part of a 

 tree, to work in. It. never works in wood that 

 is green and has the sap or juices in it ; for 

 the bee knows, just as well as any carpenter 

 does, that it is very hard to get tools through 

 such wood. I expect that you have seen 

 sometimes, when an old post or. dry board was 

 split, a long hollow groove in the middle of? it, 



