HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 441 



separated from each other by partitions of particles of 

 pith glued together 3 . 



Such are the curious habitations of the carpenter bees. 

 Next I shall introduce you to the not less interesting 

 structures of another family which carry on the trade of 

 masons, building their solid houses solely of artificial 

 stone. The first step of the mother bee, Apis muraria, 

 Oliv. (Anthophora, F., Megachile, Latr.) is to fix upon 

 a proper situation for the future mansion of her offspring. 

 For this she usually selects an angle, sheltered by any 

 projection, on the south side of a stone wall. Her next 

 care is to provide materials for the structure. The chief 

 of these is sand, which she carefully selects grain by 

 grain from such as contains some mixture of earth. 

 These grains she glues together with her viscid saliva 

 into masses the size of small shot, and transports by 

 means of her jaws to the site of her castle b . With a 

 number of these masses, which are the artificial stone of 

 which her building is to be composed, united by a ce- 

 ment preferable to ours, she first forms the basis or foun- 

 dation of the whole. Next she raises the walls of a cell, 

 which is about an inch in length and half an inch broad, 

 and before its orifice is closed in form resembles a thim- 

 ble. This, after depositing an egg and a supply of ho- 

 ney and pollen, she covers in, and then proceeds to the 

 erection of a second, which she finishes in the same man- 

 ner, until the whole number, which varies from four to 



a Ann. du Mus. x. 236. b Reaumur plausibly supposes that 



it has been from observing this bee thus loaded, that the tale mention- 

 ed by Aristotle and Pliny, of the hive-bee's ballasting itself with a 

 bit of stone previously to flying home in a high wind, has arisen. 



