Bramble-bees and Others 



perhaps arranged by the Bee's own care: 

 these are the only establishments which I 

 know them to occupy. And here, with no 

 other shelter than the cover of the refuge, 

 they build a mass of cells joined together and 

 grouped into a sphere, which, in the case of 

 the Four-lobed Resin-bee, attains the size of 

 a man's fist, and, in that of Latreille's Resin- 

 bee, the size of a small apple. 



At first sight, we remain very uncertain as 

 to the nature of the strange ball. It is brown, 

 rather hard, slightly sticky, with a bituminous 

 smell. Outside are encrusted a few bits of 

 gravel, particles of earth, heads of large-sized 

 Ants. This cannibal trophy is not a sign of 

 barbarous customs: the Bee does not decapi- 

 tate Ants to adorn her hut. An inlayer, like 

 her colleagues of the Snail-shell, she gathers 

 any hard granule near at hand capable of 

 strengthening her work; and the dried skulls 

 of Ants, which are frequent round about her 

 abode, are in her eyes building-stones of equal 

 value to the pebbles. One and all employ 

 what they can find without much seeking. 

 The inhabitant of the shell, in order to con- 

 struct her barricade, makes shift with the dry 

 excrement of the nearest Snail; the denizen 

 ' 324 



