THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



205 



chimney-sweep, and protect its skin when it chmbs its 

 wooden chimneys. 



122. Larva of the Great Capricornis. 



Bnt we find artisans endowed with a very different kind 

 of ingenuity, in a certain tribe of bees called carpenter- 

 bees, on account of their great skill in working wood. 

 They live principally in tropical countries. One kind, 

 however, inhabits our latitudes ; it has the look of a great 

 huml^le-bee of the most beautiful Ijlue colour, and is 

 known by the name of the carpenter-bee, MeijacliUe skixla. 

 Impelled merely by maternal instinct, its work, which 

 consists of as many little chambers as it lays eggs, is a 

 masterpiece of skill and foresight. It is generally beams 

 that this bee attacks. It cuts in them, lengtlnvise, canals 

 whicli are as much as a dozen inches deep and more than 

 a third of an inch wide. 



When one of tliese great excavations has attained its 

 entire length, the artisan occupies itself in sheltering its 

 offspring in it. For this purpose it divides the groove 

 into as many little chambers as it is aljout to deposit eggs. 

 Each of these chambers receives one egg only, and before 

 closing it hermetically the bee stores up a mass of honey 

 and pollen which will suffice for all the wants of the larva 

 that is to lie born thei'e. After this the skilful carpen- 

 ter, by means of finely-rasped wood agglutinated with its 

 saliva, constructs a slender jDartition which separates each 



