There is a species of wild bee, that cover the walls of their cells with coatings of sober-coloured materials, generally selecting for their hangings the leaves of trees, especially of the rose, whence they have been known by the name of the leaf-cutter bees. They differ also from A, Papaveris in excavating longer burrows, and filling them with several thimble-shaped cells, composed of portions of leaves so curiously convoluted, that, if we were ignorant n what school they have been taught to construct them, we hould never credit their being the work of an insect. Their entertaining history, so long ago as 1670, attracted the attention of our countrymen, Ray, Lister, Willoughby, and Sir Edw. King; but we are indebted for the most complete account of the procedure, to Reaumur

The mother bee first excavates a cylindrical hole eight or ten inches long, in a horizontal direction, either in the ground or in the trunk of a rotten willow-tree, or occasionally in other decaying wood. This cavity she fills with six or seven cells, wholly composed of portions of leaf in the shape of a thimble, the convex end of one closely fitting into the open end of another. Her first process is to form the exterior coating, which is composed of three or four pieces, of larger dimensions than the rest, and of an oval form. The second coating is formed of portions of equal size, narrow at one end, but gradually widening towards the other, where the width equals half the length. One side of these pieces is the serrate margin of the leaf from which it was taken, which, as the pieces are made to lap one over the other, is kept on the outside, and that which has been cut within. The tittle animal now forms a third coating of similar materials, the middle of which, as the most skilful workman would do in similar circumstances, she places over the margins of those that (Orra the first tube, thus covering and strengthening the junctures. Repeating the same process, she gives a fourth and sometimes a fifth coating to her nest, taking care, at the closed end or narrow extremity of the cell, to bend the leaves so as to form a convex termination. Having thus finished a cell, her next business is to fill it, to within half a line of the orifice, with a rose-coloured conserve, composed of honey and pollen, usually collected from the flowers of thistles; and then having deposited her egg", she closes the orifice with three pieces of leaf so exactly circular, that a pair of compasses could not define their margin with more truth, and coinciding so precisely with the walls of the cell, as to be retained in their situation merely by the nicety of their adaptation. After this covering is fitted in, there remains still a concavity, which receives the convex end of the succeeding cell; and in this manner the indefatigable little animal proceeds until she has completed the six or seven cells composing her cylinder.

The process which one of these bees employs in cutting the pieces of leaf that compose her nest, is worthy of attention. Nothing can be more expeditious; she is not longer about it than we should be with a pair of scissors. After hovering for some moments over a rose bush, as if to reconnoitre the ground, the bee alights upon the leaf which she has selected, usually taking her station upon its edge, so that the margin passes between her legs. With her strong mandibles she cuts without intermission in a curve line, so as to detach a triangular portion. When this hangs by the last fibre, lest its weight should carry her to the ground, she balances her little wings for flight, and the very moment it parts from the leaf, flies off with it in triumph; the detached portion remaining bent between her legs in a direction perpendicular to her body. Thus without rule or compasses do these diminutive creatures mete out the materials of their work into portions of an ellipse, into ovals or circles, accurately accommodating the dimensions of the several pieces of each figure to each other. What other architect could carry impressed upon the tablet of his memory the entire idea of the edifice which he has to erect, and, destitute of square or plumb-line, cut out his materials in their exact dimensions without making a single mistake? Yet this is what our little bee invariably does. So far are human art and reason excelled by the teaching of the Almighty. - Reaum vi. 971 - 94. Mor. Ap. Angl. i. 157. Apis c. 2.