THE PLEASURES OF A NATURALIST 



When the egg hatches, the grub finds a loaf of 

 bread at hand for its nourishment. These little 

 barrels were each headed up with a dozen circular 

 bits of leaves cut as with a compass, exactly 

 fitting the cylinder, one upon the other. The wall 

 of the cylinder was made up of oblong cuttings 

 from leaves, about half an inch wide, and three 

 quarters of an inch long, a dozen of them lapped 

 over one another, and fitted together in the most 

 workmanlike manner. 



In my boyhood I occasionally saw this bee cut- 

 ting out her nesting-material. Her mandibles 

 worked like perfect shears. When she had cut out 

 her circular or her oblong patches, she rolled them 

 up, and, holding them between her legs, flew away 

 with them. I have seen her carry them into little 

 openings in old rails, or old posts. About the period 

 of hatching, I do not know. 



in 



SWALLOWS, in hawking through the air for insects, 

 do not snap their game up as do the true flycatchers. 

 Their mouths are little nets which they drive 

 through the air with the speed of airplanes. A 

 few mornings ago the air was cold, but it contained 

 many gauzy, fuzzy insects from the size of mos- 

 quitoes down to gnats. They kept near the 

 ground. I happened to be sitting on the sunny 

 side of a rock and saw the swallows sweep past. 



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