How Animals Work. 



of the larvae and pupae, and all unclean material that 

 may have accumulated. Then the holes and weak 

 places are all filled up and strengthened, until the old 

 nest is converted into a perfect state of repair, and 

 resembles in every respect that of the previous year. 



Another closely related Mason Bee (Chalicodoma 

 siculd) is far more sociable in its habits, and, according 

 to that veteran authority Monsieur J. H. Fabre, " several 

 thousand will establish themselves on the under surface 

 of the tiles of a hovel or the edge of a roof. It is not 

 a real society with common interests, dear to all, but 

 merely a gathering where each works for herself and is 

 not concerned with the rest. Every constructor builds 

 as the fancy takes her, where and as she wills ; only 

 she must not interfere with her neighbour's work, or 

 rough treatment will soon call her to order. This work 

 goes on all through May. At length all the eggs are 

 laid, and the bees, without any distinction as to what 

 does or does not belong to them t all set to work on a 

 common shelter of the colony a thick bed of mortar 

 filling up spaces and covering all the cells. In the end 

 the nests look like a large mass of dry mud, very irregular, 

 -arched, thickest in the middle, the primitive kernel of 

 the establishment, thinnest at the edges, where there 

 are fewest cells, and very variable in extent." 



The Leaf-cutting Bees excavate holes in the ground, 

 in rotten wood, or will take possession of any existing 

 excavation that is suitable or can be adapted to suit 

 their purpose. There is a Rose-leaf Cutting Bee which 

 sinks a perpendicular shaft in tolerably solid earth to 

 a depth of some inches, and then enlarges it into a hori- 

 zontal gallery of considerable length. She then flies 



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