82 TREATISE ON THE 
mities meet, and form a complete ring. In 
this state it continues, receiving food from 
its nurses, for five days, when it ceases to 
eat; its supplies are, of course, cut off, and 
the Bees proceed to seal up the cell with a 
waxen cover, of a brownish color, and slight- 
ly convex. Thus left to itself, the larva be- 
gins spinning around its bedy, after the man- 
ner of the silk-worm, a fine silken film or 
cocoon, which completely envelops it. The 
silken thread employed in forming this co- 
vering, Kirby and Spence tells us, proceeds 
from the middle part of the under lip, and is, 
in fact, composed of two threads, gummed 
together as they issue from the two adjoin- 
ing orifices of the spinner. In the formation 
of its cocoon, the larva occupies thirty-six 
hours, and in three days after, it is metamor- 
phosed into a nymph or pupa, terms applied 
to the mummy-like state to which the larva 
is subjected, previous to its becoming a per- 
fect insect. During this state of conceal- 
ment, various changes happen to the enclo- 
sed insect. The first change in its situation 
