THE FIELD POPPY 
199 
cavation ; it is very much as if a man were to clear out the cellars 
for a large house with his hands only. But this is only the be- 
ginning of hei task : when the cell is completed, she then flies 
away to the nearest poppy, which, as she very well knows, cannot 
be very far off in a corn-field ; she cuts out a bit of the scarlet flow- 
er, carries it to the nest, and spreads it on the floor like a carpet ; 
again she returns to the blossom and brings home another piece, 
which she lays over the first ; when the floor is covered with sev- 
eral layers of this soft scarlet carpeting, she proceeds to line the 
sides throughout in the same way, until the whole is well surround- 
ed with these handsome hangings. This brilhant cradle she makes 
for one little bee, laying only a single egg amid the flower-leaves. 
Honey and bee-bread are then collected and piled "iiip to the height 
of an inch ; and when this store is completed, the scarlet curtains 
are drawn close over the whole, and the cell is closed, the careful 
mother replacing the earth as neatly as possible, so that after she 
has finally smoothed the spot over, it is difficult to discover a cell 
you may have seen open the day before. 
This constant association with the wheat, which even the insects 
have learned by instinct, has not remained unheeded by man. 
Owing to this connection with the precious grain, the poppy of 
the Old World received, ages ago, all the honors of a classical flow- 
er, and became blended with the fables of ancient mythology ; 
not only was it given to the impersonation of Sleep, as one of his 
emblems, from the well-known narcotic influences of the plant, but 
it was also considered as sacred to one of the most ancient and 
most important deities of the system ; the very oldest statues of 
Ceres represent her with poppies in her garlands, blended with 
ears of wheat, either carried in her hand, or worn on her head. 
