170 



ZOOLOGY. 



mole or some other 'animal near the place where it deposits 

 its eggs, that the young when they appear may have an 

 abundant supply of provisions. They live on putrid meat like 

 the parent ; but the pompiles, insects allied to the wasp, live, 

 when adult ; on vegetable food, as larvse on animal substances. 

 They thus provide for the young a food they do not themselves 

 use ; they place near the nest the body of a spider or of some 

 caterpillar, which they have pierced with their sting. The 

 xylocopa or carpenter bee (Fig. 123) has similar habits, and 



Fig. 123. Xylocopa (Carpenter Bee). Fig. 124. Nest of the Xylocopa. 



hollows out in timber a series of cells, serving at once as nests 

 and storehouses for its larvse. 



328. The adult bird seldom provides any nest or 

 dwelling for itself; it is for its feeble and tender young that 

 it labours with such skill and perseverance in the construction 

 of a dwelling for them when they most require it. These 

 nests, which vary with the species, are yet as it were identical 

 as regards any species, and are uniformly constructed in the 

 way best befitting the young of that species. They vary in 

 their position, in forms, and composition, but most have 

 a hemispheric form, the exterior formed of stalks and grass 

 and herbs, the interior of soft downy substances, as moss 

 (Fig. 125) ; but at times they are more complex. A well- 

 known instance is that of the baya of India, a bird of the 

 nature of our bullfinch ; the nest it forms resembles a bottle, 

 and is suspended to the branch of a tree, so that neither apes, 

 serpents, nor even squirrels can reach it ; the entrance to the 



