The Leaf-cutters 



given greater certainty, greater ease to their 

 scissors, though this was their first experience 

 of such a material. 



The Silvery Leaf-cutter lent herself to an 

 even more conclusive test. As she readily 

 makes her nest in the reeds of my apparatus, 

 I was able, up to a certain point, to create a 

 landscape for her and select its vegetation 

 myself. I therefore moved the reed-hive to 

 a part of the enclosure stocked chiefly with 

 rosemary, whose scanty foliage is not adapted 

 for the Bee's work, and near the apparatus 

 I arranged an exotic shrubbery in pots, in- 

 cluding notably the smooth lopezia, from 

 Mexico, and the long-fruited capsicum, an 

 Indian annual. Finding close at hand the 

 wherewithal to build her nest, the Leaf-cutter 

 went no farther afield. The lopezia suited 

 her especially, so much so that almost the 

 whole nest was composed of it. The rest had 

 been gathered from the capsicum. 



Another recruit, whose cooperation I had 

 in no way engineered, came spontaneously to 

 offer me her evidence. This was the Feeble 

 Leaf-cutter (Mn^achilc imheciUa, Ger- 

 StAckf.r). Nearly a quarter of a century 

 ago, I saw her, all through the month of 



267 



