286 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



from M. Papaveris in excavating longer burrows, and filling them with 

 several thimblc-sliaped cells composed of portions oft leaves so curiously 

 convoluted, that, if we were ignorant in what school they have been 

 taught to construct them, we should never credit their being the work of 

 an insect. Their entertaining history, so long ago as 1670, attracted the 

 attention of our countrymen Ray, Lister, Willughby, and Sir Edward 

 King ; but we are indebted for the most complete account of their pro- 

 cedures to Reaumur. 



The mother bee first excavates a cylindrical hole eight or ten inches 

 long, in a horizontal direction, either in the ground or in the trunk of a 

 rotten willow-tree, or occasionally in other decaying wood. This cavity 

 she fills with six or seven cells wholly composed of portions of leaf, of 

 the shape of a thimble, the convex end of one closely fitting into the open 

 end of another. Her first process is to form the exterior coating, which is 

 composed of three or four pieces of larger dimensions than the rest, and of 

 an oval form. The second coating is formed of portions of equal size, nar- 

 row at one end but gradually widening towards the other, where the width 

 equals half the length. One side of these pieces is the serrate margin of 

 the leaf from which it was taken, which, as the pieces are made to lap 

 one over the other, is kept on the outside, and that which has been cut 

 within. The little animal now forms a third coating of similar materials, 

 the middle of which, as the most skilful workman would do in similar 

 circumstances, she places over the margins of those that form the first 

 tube, thus covering and strengthening the junctures. Repeating the same 

 process, she gives a fourth and sometimes a fifth coating to her nest, taking 

 care, at the closed end or narrow extremity of the cell, to bend the leaves 

 so as to form a convex termination. Having thus finished a cell, her next 

 business is to fill it to within half a line of the orifice with a rose-colored 

 conserve composed of honey and pollen, usually collected from the flowers 

 of thistles ; and then having deposited her egg, she closes the orifice 

 with three pieces of leaf so exactly circular, that a pair of compasses 

 could not define their margin with more truth ; and coinciding so precisely 

 with the walls of the cell, as to be retained in their situation merely by 

 the nicety of their adaptation. After this covering is fitted in, there 

 remains still a concavity which receives the convex end of the succeeding- 

 cell ; and in this manner the indefatigable little animal proceeds until 

 she has completed the six or seven cells which compose her cylinder. 



The process which one of these bees employs in cutting the pieces of 

 leaf that compose her nest is worthy of attention. Nothing can be more 

 expeditious : she is not longer about it than we should be with a pair of 

 scissors. After hovering for some moments over a rose-bush, as if to 

 reconnoitre the ground, the bee alights upon the leaf which she has 

 selected, usually taking her station upon its edge, so that the margin passes 

 between her h^gs. With her strong mandibles she cuts without intermis- 

 sion in a curve line so as to detach a triangular portion. When this hangs 

 by the last fibre, lest its weight should carry her to the ground, she bal- 

 ances her little wings for flight, and the very moment it parts from the leaf 

 flies off with it in triumph ; the detached portion remaining bent between 

 her legs in a direction j)erpendicular to her body. Thus without rule or 

 compasses do these diminutive creatures mete out the materials of their 



