THE BEE NATION. 287 



sometimes on the roofs of houses, sometimes in trees or rock 

 crevices, etc., and always know how to choose the place of 

 their settlement with regard to the best food. A bird lives 

 at the Cape, the so-called honey-guide (Cucculus indicator), 

 which leads the honey-seeking Hottentots to the bee-nests 

 known to it by flying before them, always to short dis- 

 tances, to show them -the way. As a reward, therefore, it 

 always receives part of the spoil. Can this also be instinct ? 



Very interesting also is the poppy or tapestry bee (Apis, 

 or Osmia, or Anthocopa papaveris), which digs holes for her 

 larvae three inches deep in the ground, and then so carefully 

 lines or tapestries them with cut-out pieces of the soft and 

 delicate petals of the wild poppy that not a wrinkle is left. 

 In order to make the nest quite warm and firm, several 

 layers of petals are laid one over the other. But most 

 remarkable is the way in which, after egg and bee-bread 

 have been placed in the cell, she closes it by fastening up the 

 leaves just as we should tie a sack. This done, loose earth 

 is piled over all, so that nothing betrays the presence of the 

 nest. 



There are a number of species of bees besides the tapestry 

 bee which cut leaves with their long sharp mandibles, armed 

 with four teeth, and are therefore called leaf-cutter bees by 

 Reaumur. The most widely spread of these is the rose bee 

 (Megachile centancularis), which cuts off pieces of rose and 

 ash-leaves, and so arranges the cut-out pieces in her sub- 

 terranean passages that a row of half overlapping covered 

 thimble-shaped cups is formed, which serve as cells for 

 the larvse and their food. The arrangement and closure 

 of each cell are as firm as they are neat. The whole is 

 covered with earth, so as to be invisible from outside. 

 Bingley very well describes (loc. cit., vol. iv., p. 155) the 

 care and thought, as well as mechanical skill, with which 

 the leaves are cut out. 



Reaumur relates a strikingly quaint anecdote of this 

 insect: 



"In the early days of July, 1736, the lord of a village 

 near Andelis came to the Abbe Nollet, in company with his 

 apparently much terrified gardener. The latter had come 

 to Paris to tell his master that his property had been 

 bewitched. He had had the courage to bring with him 

 some proofs which had convinced himself, the priest of the 



