418 
INSECTS. 
[Chai>. XII. 
selves in the vicinity 1 of its nests. These are of such 
ample dimensions, that when suspended from a branch, 
they often measure upwards of six feet in length. 2 
Bees. — Bees of several species and genera, some un- 
provided with stings, and some in size scarcely exceed- 
ing a house-fly, deposit their honey in hollow trees, or 
suspend their combs from a branch. The spoils of their 
industry form one of the chief resources of the uncivi- 
lised Veddahs, who collect the wax in the upland forests, 
to be bartered for arrow points and clothes in the low- 
lands. 3 I have never heard of an instance of persons 
being attacked by the bees of Ceylon, and hence the 
natives assert, that those most productive of honey are 
destitute of stings. 
The Carpenter Bee. — The operations of one of the 
most interesting of the tribe, the Carpenter bee 4 , 1 have 
watched with admiration from the window of the Colo- 
1 It ought to be remembered in the bases of several together, 
travelling in the forests of Ceylon whereby they assume the hexagonal 
that sal volatile applied imme- shape, whereas, if constructed 
diately is a specific for the sting of separately, he thought each single 
a wasp. cell would be circular. See Proc. 
2 At the January (1839) meet- Ent. Soc. vol. iii. p. 16. 
ing of the Entomological Society, 3 A gentleman connected with 
Mr. Whitehouse exhibited portions the department of the Surveyor- 
of a wasps' nest from Ceylon, be- General writes to me that he 
tween seven and eight feet long measured a honey-comb which he 
and two feetin diameter, and showed found fastened to the overhanging 
that the construction of the cells branch of a small tree in the forest 
was perfectly analogous to those of near Adam's Peak, and found it 
the hive bee, and that when con- nine links of his chain or about 
neeted each has a tendency to six feet in length and a foot in 
assume a circular outline. In one breadth where it was attached to 
specimen where there were three the branch, but tapering towards 
cells united the outer part was cir- the other extremity. " It was a 
cular, whilst the portions common single comb with a layer of cells 
to the three formed straight walls, on either side, but so weighty that 
From this Singhalese nest Mr. the branch broke by the strain." 
Whitehouse demonstrated that the 4 Xylocopa tenuiscapa, Westw. ; 
wasps at the commencement of Another species foiind in Ceylon is 
their comb proceed slowly, forming the X. latipes, Drury. 
