Learn each small people's genius, policies,

The ants' republic, and the realm of bees;

How those in common all their wealth bestow

And anarchy without confusion know;

And these for ever, though a monarch reign,

Their separate cells and properties maintain.

Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state,

Laws, wise as Nature, and as fixt as Fate. Pope.

The following curious account of wild bees is principally abridged from Kirby and Spence's very interesting work on entomology.

The clothier bee is a lively and gay insect. It does not excavate holes for their reception, but places them in the cavities of old trees, or of any other object that suits its purpose. Sir Thomas Cullum discovered the nest of one in the inside of the lock of a garden gate, in which Mr. Kirby also since twice found them. It should seem, however, that suchs. situations would be too cold tor the grubs without a coating; of some non-conducting substance. The parent bee, therefore, after having constructed the cells, laid an egg in each, and filled them with a store of suitable food, plasters them with a covering of vermiform masses, apparently composed of honey and pollen; and having done this, aware (long before Count Rumford's experiments) what materials conduct heat most slowly, she attacks the woolly leaves of Stachy's lanata, Agio-stemma coronaria, and similar plants, and with her mandibles industriously scrapes off the wool, which with her fore legs she rolls into a little ball, and carries to her nest. This wool she sticks upon the plaster that covers her cells, and thus closely envelopes them with a warm coating of down, impervious to every change of temperature.