LEAF-CUTTER BEES. 231 



Knowing their general characteristics, I took care not to 

 have any living creature in the same vessel. But I have heard, 

 from those who have had practical experience, that Chicken 

 Tortoises ought to be banished from any place wherein fish 

 are kept, especially if they be gold fish, the Tortoise having a 

 way of coming quietly beneath them, biting out a mouthful of 

 their bodies, and then disappearing with its booty. 



Beside the Tortoise, there are many creatures which possess 

 natural shears, such as the Locust, whose ravages are only too 

 notorious. Then, taking our own country, we have plenty of 

 examples of insect shears. Such is to be found in the jaws of 

 the Cockchafer larva, or " White Grub " as it is popularly called. 

 It lives underground, and feeds chiefly on the roots of herbage, 

 shredding them to pieces with its shear-like jaws. And, as it 

 spends on the average three years in the one task of perpetual 

 eating, the damage which it does can be easily imagined. 



There is a very pretty English insect which admirably 

 exemplifies the power of the natural scissors. This is the 

 Great Green Grasshopper (Acrida viridissima) , which is equally 

 voracious in all its stages of existence. It is always ready to 

 use these jaws, and I do not recommend the reader to allow his 

 finger to get between them, or their points will probably 

 meet. 



One of these insects, indeed (Decticus griseus), has derived 

 the name of "Wart-biter from its supposed use in curing warts. 

 All that was needful was to catch a Wart-biter, and hold one 

 of the warts to its jaws. It was sure to seize the wart, 

 and bite it smartly, and there was a firm belief that any one 

 thus bitten would be freed from the unsightly excrescence. 

 The bite of the shear-like jaws caused much pain at the time, 

 and this very pain had in all probability something to do with 

 the cure. 



An admirable example of the insect jaws used as scissors is 

 to be found in the well-known Leaf-cutter Bees, insects belong- 

 ing to the genus Megachile. 



They make their nests in burrows, sometimes in wood, and 

 sometimes in the ground, and form them in a very singular 

 manner. After fixing upon a suitable burrow, the Bee goes off 



