116 WAYS OF THE SIX-FOOTED 



mon spins a beautiful silken cocoon about itself and 

 with calm effrontery changes to a pupa. In this state 

 it waits until the bees above it have matured and de- 

 parted, and then it issues, a full-fledged ichneumon, and 

 flies out into the world to perpetuate the hereditary 

 tricks of its family. We found one of these ichneumon 

 cocoons in the middle cell of a Ceratina nest. Only 

 one of the mature bees was found in the tunnel below 

 the cocoon, and it had its head pointed downward, thus 

 telling, as plainly as words could have told, that, dis- 

 gusted with the creature it found obstructing its upward 

 pathway, it had turned about with a firm intention to 

 dig out by way of China, if necessary. Undoubtedly, 

 many bees, which escape being eaten by the parasite, 

 die thus from imprisonment. 



This completes the record of all we discovered dur- 

 ing one summer about the Ceratina. It is difficult to 

 express in mere words how this beautiful little creature 

 won our hearts. Just the sight of her has always been 

 a joy to us since ; to us she is something more than a 

 mere creature of instinct ; she is a bee of character. 

 Our last glimpse of her was in November, when we 

 found a family of eight in a clean nest, one behind the 

 other, head downward, packed away snugly for the 

 winter. The bee in the most exposed position next to 

 the door — the bee last to seek shelter after all the 



