LEAI-CTJTTER BEE. 139 



your eye that which has just lighted on a red poppy : it is 

 not richly dressed — ^yellow and brown are the colours of its 

 costume ; but it is in possession of another luxury well worth 

 the luxury of clothes. In the middle of a walk there is a 

 little hole, of the size of the quill of a pen; that is the 

 entrance to the house which that sort of bee makes itself in 

 the earth, by carrying the soil away from its little cavern, 

 grain by grain. It is not chance that leads it to the poppy ; 

 it is about to cut a sheet of crimson tapestry, with which to 

 decorate its home. See, it* has cut with its teeth, from the 

 edge of one of the petals of the flower, a little piece, which 

 forms very regularly the half of an oval ; it seizes the piece, folds 

 it in its claws, and bears it away to its abode. The entrance 

 is narrow, and nearly three inches deep. The piece of red satin 

 is a little ragged, but it applies it to the partition, and 

 stretches it properly : it will require twenty pieces to cover 

 the chamber. But you will pardon this luxury when I tell 

 you that that apartment, so richly hung, is the cradle of the 

 child it will soon bring into the world. The tapestiy is 

 fitted, and it sets out again. It is not sufficient that the 

 future inhabitant of the pretty cell should be well lodged ; it 

 must have abundance of food provided, for its mother will 

 not be able to bring it any : she will be dead before the egg 

 from which it is to issue shall be hatched. It brings in its 

 feet the dust of the stamens of flowers,, which it mingles with 

 honey, and of which it makes a little heap. Then, and not 

 until then, it lays a little egg near the heap, from which, at 

 a later period, will issue a worm destined to become a bee. 

 But this is not all : if the house were left open, some ichneu- 

 mon might come as an enemy, or ants might devour the 

 honey. The bee then takes down the hangings of the peri- 

 style of her house, — that is to say, the little quill-shaped con- 

 duit which leads to the apartment, and which, like the rest, 

 was covered with poppy-leaves ; it then pushes this part of 

 the tapestry to the entrance of the chamber, after which it 

 fills the passage with earth so completely, that it is almost im- 

 possible to discover any trace of it. 



Let us return to the banks of my rivulet, from which this 



, little bee has lured us. Here is a shrub whose branches are 



of a beautiful yellow; it is the willow, whose young branches 



