How Animals Work. 



to the wall with the greatest tenacity, requiring the use 

 of hammer and chisel to detach it. These oval masses 

 have been carefully built up, with wonderful patience 

 and art, by the little Solitary Mason Bee, who has 

 worked upon them as both architect and labourer. 



It is in May that the female Mason Bee begins her 

 work. In the warm sunshine she may be seen most 

 carefully and methodically exploring every inch of the 

 surface of a stone wall. She will have nothing to do 

 with stucco or plaster, so dear to the heart of the human 

 jerry-builder, for she seems to be fully aware of its 

 unstable character. Having selected what she con- 

 siders a suitable site, she goes off to collect her build- 

 ing materials, flying off to some spot where a patch 

 of sandy or gravelly soil is exposed. Here she begins 

 scraping with her feet and working with her jaws until 

 she has dislodged a few small stones and sand-grains 

 of a certain size. These are mixed with earth, and a 

 little saliva which she disgorges, working the whole up 

 into a kind of mortar or cement to be used in building. 

 This successfully accomplished, she firmly grasps the 

 pellet and wings her way back to the wall, fastens it 

 there, and then hurries back for more. Sufficient 

 material collected, the little Mason now commences 

 building operations, working at the cement until the 

 walls of a tiny, somewhat oval-oblong cell begin to 

 appear. She works with a perfect fury of enthusiasm 

 and tireless energy, so that in one day of ceaseless labour 

 the cell is constructed, and its inner walls carefully 

 smoothed. 



Now comes a change of work, for the completed cell 

 has to be victualled, and for the time being the little 



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