274 
THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
NEST OF THE POEYSTRACTIS. 
fastening themselves to the legs of those above. Finally the “ founder bee ” chews 
and fastens his wax to a support and roughly marks out a cell; he then drops 
out of the crowd and is succeeded by one after another 
of the wax-workers. The form of the cell insures the 
greatest strength, together with the least waste of 
space or materials. A celebrated mathematician worked 
out the size of the angles made by a six-sided figure 
whose base is a concave triangular pyramid, and it was 
found to be that of the angles instinctively made by the bee. 
The males, being larger, are provided with enlarged 
cells specially constructed for their use. The out-door 
workers carry a honey-bag, and are faithful in delivering 
at the hive the honey collected; some cells are reserved 
wholly for storage. The eggs, having been enclosed 
in a cell, are, as has been said, looked after by the nurse- 
bees until the pupa appears; this is fed for six days and 
then closed up in a cell, whose walls it at once begins 
to cover with tapestry, after which it is transformed 
into a bee, opens its cell and joins the older bees, who 
cleanse it, and put its room in order for another occupant. The young bee 
now begins the labor of life, and 
seems to regard work, not as a 
curse, but as a blessing perverted 
by man. The old bees now prepare 
to move them out and the young 
to leave the ancestral home. After 
the drones have fulfilled their 
special mission the working-bees 
fall upon them and slay them. 
The mason-bee builds against 
a wall and uses an earthen mor¬ 
tar ; the gronnd-bee builds in the 
earth; the leaf-cutter uses leaves, 
which it varnishes red ; the wall-bee 
builds a silken habitation in crevices; 
the carding-bee arranges itself in 
columns and passes from hand to 
hand (or from foot to foot) the 
moss which it uses in building. 
The Wasp is too pronounced 
a friend of our youth to be for- 
our 
gotten; whatever may have been the 
stings of our outrageous fortune, the 
pain has passed and we can afford to 
consider the peculiarities and apti¬ 
tudes of our former enemy, who 
always obeyed the injunction “ when tree nest of the myomecodia. 
found, stick a pin in it.” The wasp 
masticates bits of bark until transformed into veritable paper pulp. Making a 
