54 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 



sandy railroad bed. Here is a busybody that has 

 just begun to sink its shaft almost perpendicularly 

 close to the iron track. With what earnestness it 

 sets to work with mandible and tarsi, as though it 

 had determined to take a short cut to peep at some 

 entomological antipodean. In a minute or two it 

 has buried itself, and I can just see the tip of its 

 abdomen, when suddenly it backs out, bringing 

 with its feet the loosened grains of sand and fling- 

 ing them well out from the hole. In this way it 

 continues to work, remaining longer and longer 

 each time it enters the shaft, the task becoming 

 more difficult as it bores with " tooth and nail " 

 deeper into the earth. One of these passages has 

 been sunk to the depth of fifteen inches, slightly 

 inclined from the perpendicular, and as round as if 

 it had been bored with a gimlet. Following this, 

 I unearthed a female that appeared confused, as 

 she dropped from her burrow, where probably she 

 had just begun glazing and fitting up her first cell 

 for the egg. 



The queen humble-bee, dressed in her best yellow 

 satin gown, has ventured out for the first time, and 

 immediately sets to work to find a suitable loca- 

 tion for her home. Probably every member of the 

 household except her royal self perished as the 



