328 THE PHILOSOPHY 



dilutes it, and forms it into a kind of pafte, or fyrup. When this 

 operation is performed, (he completes her cell, and, after depofiting 

 an egg in it, covers the mouth of it with the fame mortar flie ufes 

 in building her neft. The egg is now inclofed on all fides in a wall- 

 ed habitation hermetically fealed. A finall quantity of air, however, 

 gets admifTion to the worm, otherwife it could not exift. Reaumur 

 difcovered that air actually penetrated through this feemingly com- 

 pad mafon-work. 



As foon as the firft cell is completed, the mafon-bee lays the foun- 

 dation of another. In the fame neft fhe often conftruds feven or 

 eight cells, and fometimes only three or four. She places them near 

 each other, but not In any regular order. This induftrious animal, 

 after all her cells are conftruded, filled with provifions, and fealed, 

 covers the whole with an envelope of the fame mortar, which, when 

 dry, is as hard as a ftone. The neft now is commonly of an oblong 

 or roundifh figure, and the external cover is compofed of coarfer 

 fand than that of the cells. As the nefts are almoft as durable as 

 the walls on which they are placed, they are often, in the following 

 feafon, occupied and repaired by a ftranger bee. Though inclofed 

 with two hard walls, when the fly emerges from the chryfalis ftate, 

 it firft gnaws with its teeth a paflage through the wall that fealed up 

 the mouth of its cell, afterwards, with the fame inftruments, it pierces 

 the ftili ftronger and more compad cover which invefts the whole 

 neft ; at laft it efcapes into the open air, and, if a female, in a (hort 

 time, conftruds a ueft of the fame kind with that which the mother 

 had made. lo all thefe fads, l>u Hamel, Reaumur, and many 

 other naturalifts of credit and reputation, have been repeatedly eye- 

 •witnefles. 



From the hardnefs of the materials with which the mafon-bee 

 •janltruds her neft, from the induftry and dexterity (he employs to 



proted 



