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The Carpenter Bee

the tunnel, what may be called an annular stage or scaffolding When this is sufficiently hardened, its interior eage affords support for a second ring of the same materials, and thus the ceiling is gradually formed of these concentric circles, till there remains only a small orifice in its centre, which is also closed with a circular mass of agglutinated particles of sawdust. When this partition, which serves as the ceiling of the first cell, and the flooring of the second, is finished, it is about the thickness of a crown piece, and exhibits the appearance of as many concentric circles as the animal has made pauses in her labour. One cell being finished, she proceeds to another, which she furnishes and completes in the same manner, and so on, until she has divided her whole tunnel into ten or twelve apartments.

Such a laborious undertaking as the constructing and furnishing these cells, cannot be the work of one, or even of two days. Considering that every cell requires a store of honey and pollen, not to be collected but with long toil, and that a considerable interval must be spent in agglutinating the floors of each, it will be very obvious that the last egg in the last cell must be laid many days after the first. We are certain, therefore, that the first egg will become a grub, and consequently a perfect bee, many days before the last. What then becomes of it? It is impossible that it should make its escape though eleven superincumbent cells, without destroying the immature tenants; and it seems equally impossible that it should remain patiently in confinement below them until they are all disclosed. This dilemma our heaven-taught architect has provided against. With forethought, never enough to be admired, she has not constructed her tunnel with one opening only, but at the farther end has pierced another orifice, a kind of back door, through which the insects produced by the firstlaid eggs successively emerge into day. In fact, all the young bees, even the uppermost, go out by this road; for, by an exquisite instinct, each grub, when about to become a pupa, places itself in its cell, with its head downwards, and thus is necessitated, when arrived at its last state, to pierce its cell in this direction.

We shall now describe THE MASON-BEE. - There is a family of wild bees which carry on the trade of masons, building their solid houses solely of artificial stone. The first step of the mother bee, Apis mururia, Oliv. (Anthophara, F. Megachile, Latr.) is to fix upon a proper situation for the future mansion of her offspring. For this she usually selects an angle, sheltered by any projection, on the south side of a stone wall. Her next care is to provide materials for the structure. The chief of these is sand, which she carefully selects, grain by