The Cotton-bees 



visions collected by the mother and placed in 

 a narrow cell is subject to conditions of health 

 unknown to the roving grub that goes where 

 it likes and feeds itself on what it can pick up. 

 The first, the recluse, is no more able than 

 the second, the gadabout, to solve the pro- 

 blem of a food which can be entirely assimi- 

 lated, without leaving an unclean residue. 

 The second gives no thought to these sordid 

 matters: any place suits it for getting rid of 

 that difficulty. But what will the other do 

 with its waste matter, cooped up as it is in a 

 tiny cell stuffed full of provisions? A most 

 unpleasant mixture seems inevitable. Picture 

 the honey-eating grub floating on liquid pro- 

 visions and fouling them at intervals with its 

 excretions! The least movement of the 

 hinder-part would cause the whole to amalga- 

 mate; and what a broth that would make for 

 the delicate nurseling! No, it cannot be; 

 those dainty epicures must have some method 

 of escaping these horrors. 



They all have, in fact, and most original 

 methods at that. Some take the bull by the 

 horns, so to speak, and, in order not to soil 

 things, refrain from unclcanlincss until the 

 end of the meal; they keep the dropping-trap 



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