HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 281 
These nests, which do not exceed six or eight inches in diameter, are 
generally found in meadows and pastures, and sometimes in hedge-rows 
where the soil is entangled with roots. The lower half occupies a cavity 
in the soil, either accidentally found ready made, or excavated with great 
Jabour by the bees. The upper part or dome of the nest is composed of a 
thick felted covering of moss, haying the interior ceiling coated with a thin 
roof of coarse wax for the purpose of keeping out the wet. The entrance 
is in the lower part, and is generally through a gallery or covered way, 
sometimes more than a foot in length and half an inch in diameter, by 
means of which the nest is more effectually concealed from observation. 
On removing the coping of moss, the interior presents to our view a very 
different scene from that witnessed in a bee-hive. Instead of numerous 
vertical combs of wax, we see merely a few irregular horizontal combs 
placed one above the other, the uppermost resting upon the more elevated 
parts of the lower, and connected together by small pillars of wax. Each 
of these combs consists of several groups of pale-yellow oval bodies of 
three different sizes, those in the middle being the largest, closely joined 
to each other, and each group connected with those next it by slight join- 
ings of wax. These oval bodies are not, as you might suppose, the work 
of the old bees, but the silken cocoons spun by the young larva. Some 
are closed at the upper extremity ; others, véltich, chiefly occupy the lower 
combs, have this part open. The former are those which yet include their 
immature tenants ; the latter are the empty cases from which the young 
bees have escaped. On the surface of the upper comb are seen several 
masses of wax of a flattened spheroidal shape, and of very various dimen- 
sions : some above an inch, and others not a quarter of an inch, in dia- 
meter ; which, on being opened, are found to include a number of larve 
surrounded with a supply of pollen moistened with honey. These, which 
are the true cells, are chiefly the work of the female, which, after 
depositing her eggs in them, furnishes them with a store of pollen and 
honey ; and, when this is consumed, supplies the larva with a daily pro- 
vision, as has been described in a former letter, until they are sufficiently 
grown to spin the cocoons before spoken of. Lastly, in all the corners of 
the combs, and especially in the middle, we observe a considerable number 
of small goblet-like vessels, filled with honey and pollen, which are not, as 
in the case of the hive-bee, the fabrication of the workers, but are chiefly 
the empty cocoons left by the larve. It falls to the workers, however, to 
cut off the fragments of silk from the orifice of the cocoon, which, after 
giving it arregular circular form, they strengthen by a ring or elevated tube 
of wax made in a different shape by different species ; and to coat them 
internally with a lining of the same material. They even occasionally con- 
struct honey-pots entirely of wax. 
The most curious circumstance in the construction of these nests is the 
mode in which the bees transport the moss employed in forming the roof. 
When they have discovered a parcel of this material conveniently situated 
upon the ground, five or six insects place themselves upon it in a file, 
turning the hinder part of their bodies towards the quarter to which it is 
meant to be conveyed. The first takes a small portion, and with its jaws 
and forelegs, as it were, felts it together. When the fibres are sufficiently 
1 Huber, Linn. Trans. vi. 215 — 298. 
