kind,—and thus on and on flows the wonderful stream of life, whose origin who shall estimate through the millennia it has hitherto so placidly and uniformly traversed, and whose termination who shall predict? Having completed the requisite store of honey mixed with pollen, this is carried to the brush with which the under side of the abdomen is furnished, by means of the posterior legs. The honey and pollen are gathered from different kinds of thistles, whence it acquires a reddish hue and looks almost like conserve of roses, and the nest is filled with it to within a line of its top; the egg is then deposited, but the coating of leaves, which enclose the cell completely, secures the store from lateral absorption, although the mixture is rather more fluid, consisting of a relatively greater quantity of honey than is usual, excepting perhaps in the case of _Ceratina_, and although no viscous secretion is used to bind the leaves together, which retain their position from merely lateral pressure. The cell has now to be closed, and the artificer knowing that the transverse section of the cylinder is circular, again flies forth, and without compass, but with all the accuracy with which Leonardo da Vinci struck a circle with his pencil, to testify his mastery, cuts the leaf again in that form, and as surely: and, three or four, or five or six times, repeats this operation, returning each time with each piece, so many having been variously observed. The separation between the cells being thus consolidated, it is further thickened by the lateral, spare, protruding edge of the leaf first introduced lapping over it. The whole process is again renewed in the same manner as at first, the bottom edge of the cutting of the external leaf is again curved to form a concave bottom to the next cell, and the sides are similarly formed, and each cell fits the preceding like the top of one thimble placed in the mouth of another. The repetition of all this is continued until the completion of the five or six cells necessary to fill the tube, when another is formed with the same routine, if her store of eggs is not exhausted; and the orifice of the tube, upon the completion of the last cell, which is closed in the usual way, is filled up with earth. Should any casualty interfere with her labours or temporarily derange their utility, without the obstruction being one that would permanently affect it, the remarkable patience and rapidity with which the repairs are effected, or the obstructions removed, is worthy of all admiration,—the _στοργὴ_, or love of offspring, being the predominant passion which overthrows and controls every difficulty.