50 THE BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM. 



appearance of a minute bottle-brush, and at other 

 times that of a miniature IWs-tail. By the time 

 this final protection to the eggs is completed, the 

 body of the devoted parent, as may be imagined, is 

 almost entirely denuded of its beautiful silky cloth- 

 ing'; but she has fortunately no further occasion for 

 it, as having thus completed the last act of her brief 

 existence, she almost immediately expires. 



Some species of Humble Bees, as Bomb us Mus- 

 corum, cover their nests with a roof of moss ; and 

 Huber, in a paper published in the " Linnsean 

 Transactions," has described a pair of these insects 

 which contrived their nest under a bell-glass, and 

 substituted small pieces of cloth when moss was no 

 longer to be procured. It is thus evident that 

 many of the solitary nest-building Bees might be 

 so domesticated in a Vivarium as to exhibit under 

 the eye all the processes pursued in their ingenious 

 architecture. If a pair of " Poppy Bees," a species 

 which line their nest with petals of the crimson 

 poppy as a couch for the future young, could be 

 induced to exhibit their skill in a state of confine- 

 ment, the spectacle would be very gratifying. 



Bees are, in fact, among the most ingenious of 

 insect nest-builders, the beautiful honeycomb being 

 simply a series of nests, or one vast nest divided into 



