The Cotton-bees 



Barnaby's thistle; between the rich silvery 

 Heece of the woolly sage and the short hairs 

 of the everlasting. With the Anthidium, 

 these clumsy botanical characteristics do not 

 count; one thing alone guides her: the pre- 

 sence of cotton. Provided that the plant be 

 more or less well-covered with soft wadding, 

 the rest is immaterial to her. 



Another condition, however, has to be ful- 

 filled apart from the fineness of the cotton- 

 wool. The plant, to be worth shearing, must 

 be dead and dry. I have never seen the har- 

 vesting done on fresh plants. In this way, the 

 Bee avoids mildew, which would make its 

 appearance in the mass of hairs still filled 

 with their sap. 



Faithful to the plant recognized as yield- 

 ing good results, the Anthidium arrives and 

 resumes her gleaning on the edges of the parts 

 denuded by earlier harvests. Her mandibles 

 are hard at work scraping up and then passing 

 on the tiny flake to the hind-legs, which hold 

 the pellet pressed against the chest, mix with 

 it the rapidly-increasing store of down and 

 make the whole into a little ball. When this 

 is the size of a pea, it goes back into the man- 

 dibles; and the insect flies off, with its bale 



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