As we did not perceive any heaps of earth near the holes at Largs, we concluded that it must either have been carried off piecemeal when they were dug, or that they were old holes re-occupied (a circumstance common with bees), and that the rubbish had been trodden down by passengers. Réaumur, who so minutely describes the subsequent operations of the bee, says nothing respecting its excavations. One of these holes is about three inches deep, gradually widening as it descends, till it assumes the form of a small Florence flask. The interior of this is rendered smooth, uniform, and polished, in order to adapt it to the tapestry with which it is intended to be hung, and which is the next step in the process. The material used for tapestry by the insect upholsterer is supplied by the flower-leaves of the scarlet field-poppy, from which she successively cuts off small pieces of an oval shape, seizes them between her legs, and conveys them to the nest. She begins her work at the bottom, which she overlays with three or four leaves in thickness, and the sides have never less than two. When she finds that the piece she has brought is too large to fit the place intended, she cuts off what is superfluous, and carries away the shreds. By cutting the fresh petal of a poppy with a pair of scissors, we may perceive the difficulty of keeping the piece free from wrinkles and shrivelling; but the bee knows how to spread the pieces which she uses as smooth as glass. When she has in this manner hung the little chamber all around with this splendid scarlet tapestry, of which she is not sparing, but extends it even beyond the entrance, she then fills it with the pollen of flowers mixed with honey, to the height of about half an inch. In this magazine of provisions for her future progeny she lays an egg, and over it folds down the tapestry of poppy-petals from above. The upper part is then filled in with earth; but Latreille says he has observed more than one cell constructed in a single excavation. This may account for Réaumur's describing them as sometimes seven inches deep; a circumstance which Latreille, however, thinks very surprising.