THE HOME OF THE BEES. 605 
which undoubtedly possess a reasoning power? Its in- 
stinct teaches it to build cells, and prepare its pollen mass, 
and lay an egg thereon. Its reason enables it, in such an 
instance as this, when the life of the brood is threatened, 
_ to guard against any such danger by means to which it 
does not habitually resort. This instance is paralleled by 
the case of our common Summer Yellow-bird, which, on 
finding an egg of the Cow-bunting in its nest, often builds 
a new nest above it, to the certain destruction of the un- 
welcome egg in the nest beneath. 
In the structure of the bee, and in all its stages of 
growth, our parasite seems lower in the zoological scale 
than its host. It is structurally a degraded form of 
Working-bee, and its position socially is unenviable. It 
is lazy, not having the provident habits of the Working- 
bees; it aids not in the least, so far as we know, 
the cross-fertilization of plants, —one great office in the 
economy of nature which most bees perform,—since it is 
not a pollen-gatherer, but on the contrary is seemingly a 
drag and hinderance to the course of nature. But yet 
nature kindly, and as if by a special interposition, for 
which the Developmentists will find it difficult to account, 
provides for its maintenance, and the humble naturalist 
can only exclaim, “God is great, and His ways myste- 
rious,” and go on his way studying and collecting facts, 
leaving to his successors the more difficult task, but 
greater joy of discovering the cause and reason of things 
that are but a puzzle to the philosophers of this day. 
The larva of Nomada may be known from those of its 
host, by its slenderer body and smaller head, while the 
body is smoother’ and more cylindrical. Both sexes of 
Nomada imbricata and N. pulchella of Smith were found 
by Mr. Emerton, the former in both the Andrena and 
