lo4 LITTLE FOLKS 
A LITTLE DARK NURSERY UNDER THE GROUND. 
Maybe you think you wouldn't like a dark nursery under the 
ground, but you would if you were a Bombus. Your mother would 
dig it- out with the greatest care, afoot or so under ground, nice 
and warm and safe, with a long dark passage leading to the air. 
But you don't know what a Bombus is ! 
You've often seen her buzzing around the flowers in the gar- 
den, brushing out the honey with the little brush she carries in her 
mouth. You call her Humble Bee, or perhaps Bumble Bee ; and 
probably you have seen her coming home many a time, with two 
baskets full of pollen to feed her babies. 
You never saw any baskets ? 
Well, that's because they're too little to see. She isn't big 
enough to carry a market -basket, you know ; besides, she has no 
hands, and she has to use all six of her legs in walking ; so she has 
on her hind legs two of the cunningest baskets you can imagine, 
made of stiff hairs ; in fact, they grew there on purpose. They're 
so little you'd need a magnifying-glass to see them. 
This odd little mother doesn't make her jars of honey six- 
sided, and all nicely packed in together, as do her cousins, who live 
in a hive ; they are loosely scattered around, but the honey in them 
is delicious, as you'd find out in a minute, if you could get at 
them. 
You've heard that verse, " How doth the little busy bee," a 
hundred tim^s I dare say, so I won't repeat it, but I want to tell 
you how this little busy bee works. 
When the cold winter winds come in the Fall, perhaps you 
know that most insects die, but this little mother doesn't get off so 
easily. She hunts around, and finds a snug, safe place, — not in her 
home, as you'd suppose she would, but in some hole in a hollow 
tree, or under a haystack, or some such funny place. All Winter 
she lies there, with no food, in a sort of sleep, but the first warm 
days of Spring wake her up, and out she comes, ready to go to 
work. 
