OBSERVATIONS ON INSECT LIFE 189 



which the faculty of inteHigence has so often been 

 ascribed, should fail in a simple device that has long 

 since been discovered by a number of the less gifted 

 humble-bees. 



Towards the end of May a number of small leaf- 

 cutting- bees, belonging to the species Megachile 

 ccphalotes, determined to construct their nests in my 

 bungalow. They selected the holes that once held 

 the screws for the hinges of an old doorway. I often 

 used to watch them coming during the heat of the day 

 carrying their burdens to the screw-holes and lining 

 their tunnels with a layer of leaves. It was interest- 

 ing to observe how the bee used to take the edge of 

 the leaf between its jaws and work all round the 

 margin licking it with its long tongue, and covering 

 the edge with a sticky secretion to make it adhere 

 firmly to the underlying leaves. It reminded one of 

 a human being licking the edge of an envelope in 

 order to seal it down over a letter. And the resem- 

 blance was more complete, for the bee would often 

 press down the gummed edge with its mandibles and, 

 I think sometimes, with the front of its head, just as a 

 man presses down the edge of the envelope with the 

 fingers in order to make it firmly stick. 



The mud-wasps of the genus Bzcuienes are well 

 known in India. They commonly enter houses and 

 construct their mud nests ag-ainst the walls or furniture 

 of the room, and provision the cells with caterpillars 

 as food for the larvae. A large species, E. dimi- 

 diatipennis, used to make a flat nest of smooth clay 

 on the wall of my bedroom. It was composed of 

 mud without the trace of a pebble. One evening I 

 discovered that a species of mud-wasp had constructed 



