Ill 



MASONS 



THOUGH the Masons are not so numerous as the 

 Miners, the insect world includes some artizans 

 who are very efficient in the use of trowel and 

 mortar, and some of them work with such fine 

 regard for form that they may be regarded even as 

 art potters. It is among the Hymenoptera, the 

 order that includes the most intelligent of the 

 insect tribes, that we find the art of the mason 

 developed. Some of them are known as Mason 

 Wasps and Mason Bees, others as Mud-daubers, 

 owing to their preferring solidity to elegance in 

 their structures. 



Bates found in the Valley of the Amazons a 

 number of small bees of the genus Melipona which 

 store honey and gather pollen, much as the larger 

 Honey Bee does. But the workers of certain species 

 of the Melipona also gather clay with which, whether 

 they build in a hollow tree-trunk or in a bank of 

 earth, they completely surround the nest with a 

 solid wall. 



In the South of Europe there are several Mason 

 Bees of the genus Chalicodoma, the best-known being 



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