WILD AND HIVE BEES. II 



needs closing, while its cover is made to form the 

 floor of the next. Once more, then, the rose bush 

 must contribute perfect circles, for the cutting of 

 which no compasses are required. To the number 

 of four or five these are laid, one upon the other, 

 and pressed smoothly into position ; the wall-lining 

 is added, a second pudding and egg provided, and 

 the processes repeated until five or six chambers 

 are complete, and the work of the little labourer 

 brought to a close. And now, strangely, the last 

 deposited egg is the first in the order of time to 

 hatch. The grub emerging does as a grub so 

 placed must : it consumes its pudding, and begins 

 to occupy the space its food previously filled. The 

 mother had accurately judged, if she could judge 

 at all, the needs of her son, for this grub is a 

 male. The pudding is gone, and he is satisfied, and 

 now begins to spin a cocoon, and then passes into 

 the chrysalis condition, and presently we have the 

 perfect male Megachile biting and pushing up the 

 leafy cover, and escaping into the sunlight of a new 

 life. By his emergence, he has opened up the way 

 for his brother, and he in turn will remove all im- 

 pediment to the escape of the sisters below. Thus 

 the community of young Megachile is provided. The 

 old ones are gone, but the race lives. Their marriage 

 bells are rung while the autumn sun is shining; the 

 males die, the females seek screening from the chilly 

 blasts which must blow before their work of nest 

 building can commence, and so the circle is com- 

 pleted. 



How unlike, and yet how very like, all this to the 



