LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 131 
for the honey it is to feed on ; so that it must be 
carefully stopped, and perhaps you would not 
guess how. When a cell is finished, the bee de- 
posits the egg, and fills it up with honey ; but as 
the nest is placed horizontally it would run out ; 
she therefore takes the simplest and best mode 
of preventing it, by cutting from a leaf a round 
piece of the exact size, which she fits into the 
edge of the little vase, and to make it sure adds 
two more. To obtain these round pieces, she 
flies to a proper leaf, and seizing the edge with 
her feet, cuts a round piece with her teeth quicker 
than we should do it with scissors. It is very 
singular how she should be able to remember 
the exact size, which we should find difficult or 
- even impossible. Like most other insects, the 
female only has a sting. Reaumur first became 
acquainted with these bees in rather a singular 
manner, which he has related in his Memoires, 
and which may amuse you. In the beginning 
of July, 1736, the lord of a village on the Seine, 
near Rouen, came to the Abbe Nollet, accom- 
panied by several people, and his gardener 
among others, who appeared in great consterna- 
tion. He had come to Paris to tell his master 
that the garden was bewitched, and though he 
apprehended the most dreadful consequences, 
