Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/271

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
XYLOCOPA VIOLACEA.
267

the ground, where it appears like a small heap of saw-dust. Thus, we see, she has prepared a long cylinder in the middle of the wood, sheltered from the weather and external injuries, and fit for her purposes. But how is she to divide it into cells? what materials can she employ for making the floors and ceilings of her miniature apartments? Why, truly, God 'doth instruct her to discretion, and doth teach her!' The saw-dust, just mentioned, is at hand, and this supplies her with all that she wants to make this part of her mansion complete. Beginning at the bottom of the cylinder she deposits an egg, and then lays in a store of pollen, mixed with honey, sufficient for the nutriment of the little animal it is to produce. At the height of seven or eight lines, which is the depth of each cell, she next constructs, of particles of the saw-dust glued together, and also to the sides of the tunnel, what may be called an annular stage or scaffolding. When this is sufficiently hardened, its anterior edge affords a support for a second ring of the same materials, and thus the celling is gradually formed of these concentric circles, till there remains only a small orifice in its centre; and this is also filled up with a circular mass of agglutinated particles of the saw-dust. This partition exhibits the appearance of as many concentric circles as the animal has made joinings, and is about the thickness of a French crown-piece; it serves for the ceiling of the lower, and the floor of the upper apartment. One cell being completed, she proceeds to another, which she furnishes and finishes in the same manner; and so on till she has divided her whole tunnel into apartments, which are usually about twelve.