THE BEE. 



The grub issues from the egg on the third day, becomes a 

 nymph from the eighth to the eleventh day, and undergoes its 







Fig. 49. 



final metamorphosis, becoming a perfect insect on the seventeenth 

 day. It is, however, sometimes detained a prisoner in the cell 

 for seven or eight days longer. 



112. Naturalists are not agreed as to some of the circumstances 

 attending the treatment of the young, which we have here given 

 on the authority of Feburier and other French entomologists. 

 Mr. Dunbar, in reference to the circumstances attending the first 

 issuing of the perfect insect firom the cell, says that in hundreds 

 of instances their situation has excited his compassion, when 

 after long struggling to escape from its cradle, it has at last 

 succeeded so fer as to extrude its head, and when labouring with 

 the most eager impatience, and on the very point of extricating 

 its shoulders also, which would have at once secured its exit, a 

 dozen or two of workers, in following their avocations, have 

 trampled without ceremony over the struggling creature, which i 

 was then forced for the safety of its head, quickly to pop down 

 again into the cell and wait until the unfeeling crowd had passed, 

 before it could renew its efforts. Again and again will the same 

 impatient efibrts be repeated by the same individual, and with 

 the same mortifying interruptions, before it succeeds in obtaining 

 its freedom. Not the slightest attention or sympathy on the part 

 of the workers in these cases was ever observed by Mr. Dunbar, 

 nor did he ever witness the parental cares and sage instruction 

 given to the young which are described by the French 

 entomologists. 

 54 



