180 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



by grass, and on examination the nests of bees will frequently 

 be seen in them. 



In the Museum there is a beautiful example of ingenuity on 

 the part of the builder. Instead of choosing the cell of the banded 

 snail, she has taken that of the great garden snail, and filled it 

 with her cells. Thus it is evident that the shell is too large for 

 the formation of a single cell, and the little architect has, with 

 the greatest ingenuity, evaded the difficulty by placing two cells 

 side hy side. When, however, the smaller whorls of the shell 

 were filled, and the bee approached the opening of the shell, the 

 space was too great even for the two cells placed side by side. 

 This difficulty was, however, overcome as readily as the former, 

 and instead of placing the cells perpendicularly, the bee laid 

 them horizontally, and thus filled up the space. 



When the Osmia burrows into wood, she sets to work in a very 

 deliberate manner. " A bee,'' writes Mr. F. Smith, " is observed 

 to alight on an upright post, or other wood suitable for its 

 purposes. She commences the formation of her tunnel, not by 

 excavating downwards, as she would be incommoded with the 

 dust and rubbish which she removes ; no, she works upwards, and 

 so avoids such an inconvenience. When she has proceeded to 

 the length required, she proceeds in a horizontal direction to the 

 outside of the post, and then her operations are continued dovm- 

 wards. She excavates a cell near the bottom of the tube, a 

 second and a third, and so on to the required number. The 

 larvse when full fed have their heads turned upwards. The bees 

 which arrive at their perfect condition, or rather those which 

 are first anxious to escape into day, are two or three in the 

 upper cells — these are males ; the females are usually ten or 

 twelve days later. This is the history of every wood-boring bee 

 which I have bred, and I have reared broods of nearly every 

 species indigenous to this country." 



One of the wood-boring bees is especially worthy of notice, 

 because some of its habits were remarked a century ago by 

 GUbert White, who did not know its name, but chronicled its 

 method of obtaining padding for the nest. We will call it the 

 Hoop-SHAVER {Anthidium inanicatv/m). It is one of the summer 

 insects, seldom appearing before the beginning of July, and is a 

 rather stout-bodied insect, greyish black, with yellow lines along 



