For this reason, short of ripping up the soft dwelling, still full of honey, it is impossible to ascertain the number of storeys; we must wait until the cocoons are woven. Then our fingers can tell the cells by counting the knots that resist pressure under the cover of wadding. This general structure is easily explained. A cotton bag is made, with the sheath of the reed as a mould. If this guiding sheath were lacking, the thimble shape would be obtained all the same, with no less elegance, as is proved by the Girdled Anthidium, who makes her nest in some hiding-place or other in the walls or the ground. When the purse is finished, the provisions come and the egg, followed by the closing of the cell. We do not here find the geometrical lid of the Leaf-cutters, the pile of disks tight-set in the mouth of the jar. The bag is closed with a cotton sheet whose edges are soldered by a felting-process to the edges of the opening. The soldering is so well done that the honey-pouch and its cover form an indivisible whole. Immediately above it, the second cell is constructed, having its own base. At the beginning of this work, the insect takes care to join the two storeys by felting the ceiling of the first to the floor of the second. Thus continued to the end, the work, with its inner solderings, becomes an unbroken cylinder, in which the beauties of the separate wallets disappear from view. In very much the same fashion, but with less adhesion among the different cells, do the Leaf-cutters act when stacking their jars in a column without any external division into storeys.