Bramble-bees and Others 



of cotton in Its mouth. If we have the pa- 

 tience to wait, we shall see it return to the 

 same point, at intervals of a few minutes, so 

 long as the bag is not made. The foraging 

 for provisions will suspend the collecting of 

 cotton; then, next day or the day after, the 

 scraping will be resumed on the same stalk, 

 on the same leaf, if the fleece be not ex- 

 hausted. The owner of a rich crop appears 

 to keep to it until the closing-plug calls for 

 coarser materials; and even then this plug is 

 often manufactured with the same fine flock 

 as the cells. 



After ascertaining the diversity of cotton- 

 fields among the native plants, I naturally had 

 to enquire whether the Cotton-bee would also 

 put up with exotic plants, unknown to her 

 race ; whether the insect would show any hesi- 

 tation in the presence of woolly plants offered 

 for the first time to the rakes of her mandi- 

 bles. The common clary and the Babylonian 

 centaury, with which I have stocked the 

 harmas, shall be the harvest-fields; the reaper 

 shall be the Diadem Anthidium, the inmate of 

 my reeds. 



The common clary, or toiite-honne, forms 

 part, I know, of our French flora to-day; but 



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