370 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



constructs of particles of the saw-dust glued together, and 

 also to the sides of the tunnel, what may be called an annular 

 stage or scaffolding. When this is sufficiently hardened, its 

 interior edge affords support for a second ring of the same 

 materials, and thus the ceiling is gradually formed of these 

 concentric circles, till there remains only a small orifice in its 

 centre, which is also closed with a circular mass of agglu- 

 tinated particles of saw-dust. When this partition, which 

 serves as the ceiling of the first cell and the flooring of the 

 second, is finished, it is about the thickness of a crown-piece, 

 and exhibits the appearance of as many concentric circles as 

 the animal has made pauses in her labour. One cell being 

 finished, she proceeds to another, which she furnishes and 

 completes in the same manner, and so on until she has 

 divided her whole tunnel into ten or twelve apartments. 



Here, if you have followed me in this detail with the in- 

 terest which I wish it to inspire, a query will suggest itself. 

 It will strike you that such a laborious undertaking as the 

 constructing and furnishing these cells cannot be the work 

 of one or even of two days. Considering that every cell re- 

 quires a store of honey and pollen, not to be collected but 

 with long toil, and that a considerable interval must be spent 

 in agglutinating the floors of each, it will be very obvious to 

 you that the last egg in the last cell must be laid many days 

 after the first. We are certain, therefore, that the first egg 

 will become a grub, and consequently a perfect bee, many 

 days before the last. What then becomes of it ? you will ask. 

 It is impossible that it should make its escape through eleven 

 superincumbent cells without destroying the immature te- 

 nants ; and it seems equally impossible that it should remain 

 patiently in confinement below them until they are all dis- 

 closed. This dilemma our heaven-taught architect has pro- 

 vided against. With forethought never enough to be admired 

 she has not constructed her tunnel with one opening only, 

 but at the further end has pierced another orifice, a kind of 

 back door, through which the insects produced by the first- 

 iaid eggs successively emerge into day. In fact, all the young 

 bees, even the uppermost, go out by this road ; for, by an 

 exquisite instinct, each grub, when about to become a pupa. 



