402 BEE. 
she is provident of her materials. Further, she | tions of the bee, says nothing respecting its ex- 
has an exquisite piece of joinery to perform, | cavations. One of these holes is about three || 
when her ruder labour is accomplished. The} inches deep, gradually widening as it descends, 
patient bee works her rings from the circum- | till it assumes the form of a small Florence flask. 
ference to the centre, and she produces a shelf, | The interior of this is rendered smooth, uniform, 
united with such care with her natural glue, that | and polished, in order to adapt it to the tapestry 
a number of fragments are as solid as one piece. | with which it is intended to be hung, and which 
The violet carpenter-bee, as may be expected, |is the next step in the process. The material 
occupies several weeks in these complicated la-| used for tapestry by the insect upholsterer is 
bours; and during that period she is gradually | supplied by the petals of the scarlet field-poppy, 
depositing her eggs, each of which is successively | from which she successively cuts off. small pieces 
to become a grub, a pupa, and a perfect bee. It | of an oval shape, seizes them between her legs, 
is obvious, therefore, as she does not lay all her | and conveys them to the nest. She begins her 
eggs in the same place—as each is separated from | work at the bottom, which she overlays with 
the other by a laborious process—that the egg | three or four leaves in thickness, and the sides 
which is first laid will be the earliest hatched ; | have never less than two. When she finds that 
and that the first perfect insect, being older than | the piece she has brought is too large to fit the 
its fellows in thesame tunnel, willstrivetomakeits | place intended, she cuts off what is superfluous, 
escape sooner, and so on of the rest. The careful | and carries away the shreds. By cutting the 
mother provides for this contingency. She makes | fresh petal of a poppy with a pair of scissors, we 
a lateral opening at the bottom of the cells; for | may perceive the difficulty of keeping the piece 
the teeth of the young bees would not be strong | free from wrinkles and shrivelling; but the bee | 
enough to pierce the outer wood, though they | knows how to spread the pieces which she uses | 
can remove the cemented rings of sawdust in | as smooth as glass. When she has in this man- 
the interior. Reaumur observed these holes, in | ner hung the little chamber all round with this 
several cases: and he further noticed another | splendid scarlet tapestry, of which she is not 
external opening opposite to the middle cell, | sparing, but extends it even beyond the entrance, 
which he supposed was formed, in the first in- | she then fills it with the pollen of flowers mixed 
stance, to shorten the distance for the removal | with honey, to the height of about half an inch. 
of the fragments of wood in the lower half of the | In this magazine of provisions for her future pro- 
building.” geny she lays an egg, and over it folds down the 
The Poppy-bee.—A species of the leaf-cutting, | tapestry of poppy petals from above. The upper 
or upholsterer bee, is called the poppy-bee, from | part is then filled in with earth; but Latreille says, 
its selecting the scarlet petals of the poppy as| he has observed more than one cell construct- 
tapestry for its cells. Kirby and Spence express | ed ina single excavation. This may account for 
their doubts whether it is indigenous to the | Reaumuyr’s describing them as sometimes seven 
country ; but Mr. Rennie is almost certain that | inches deep,—a circumstance which Latreille, 
he saw the nests in Scotland. “ At Largs, in| however, thinks very surprising. It will, per- 
Ayrshire,” he says, “a beautiful sea-bathing vil- | haps, be impossible ever to ascertain, beyond a 
lage on the Firth of Clyde, in July, 1814, we | doubt, whether the tapestry-bee is led to select 
found in a foot-path a great number of the cylin- | the brilliant petals of the poppy from their colour, 
drical perforations of the poppy-bee. Reaumur | or from any other quality they may possess, of 
remarked that the cells of this bee which he| softness or of warmth for instance. Reaumur 
found at Bercy, were situated in a northern ex- | thinks that the largeness, united with the flexi- 
posure, contrary to what he had remarked in the | bility of the poppy-leaves, determines her choice. | 
mason-bee, which prefers the south. The cells at | Yet it is not improbable that her eye may be 
Largs, however, were on an elevated bank, facing | gratified by the appearance of her nest ;—that 
the south, near Sir Thomas Brisbane’s observatory. | she may possess a feeling of the beautiful in 
With respect to exposure, indeed, no certain rule | colour, and may look with complacency upon the 
seems applicable; for the nests of mason-bees | delicate hangings of the apartment which she 
which we found on the wall of Greenwich Park | destines for her offspring. Why should not an 
faced the north-east, and we have often found | insect be supposed to have a glimmering of the 
carpenter-bees make choice of a similar situation. | value of ornament? How can we pronounce, 
In one. instance, we found carpenter-bees work- | from our limited notion of the mode in which 
ing indifferently on the north-east and south-| the inferior animals think and act, that their 
west side of the same post. As we did not per-| gratifications are wholly bounded by the positive 
ceive any heaps of earth near the holes at Largs, | utility of the objects which surround them? Why 
we concluded that it must either have been car- | does a dog howl at the sound of a bugle, but be- 
ried off piecemeal when they were dug, or that | cause it offends his organs of hearing /—and 
they were old holes re-occupied,—a circumstance | why, therefore, may not a bee feel gladness in the 
common with bees,—and that the rubbish had | brilliant hues of her scarlet drapery, because they 
| been trodden down by passengers. Reaumur, | are grateful to her organs of sight? All these 
| 
| who so minutely describes the subsequent opera- | little creatures work, probably, with more neat- || 
| 8 
ES : : = | 
