Page:The Life of the Spider.djvu/27

Preface and that disk, without further measurement, is of the right size to fit the pot. Let whoso will explain this geometry, which in my opinion is inexplicable, even when we allow for memory begotten of touch and sight.'

Let us add that the author has calculated that, to form the cells of a kindred Megachile, the Silky Megachile, exactly 1,064 of these ellipses and disks would be required; and they must all be collected and shaped in the course of an existence that lasts a few weeks.

8 Who would imagine that the Pentatomida, on the other hand, the poor and evil-smelling bug of the woods, has invented a really extraordinary apparatus wherewith to leave the egg? And first let us state that this egg is a marvellous little box of snowy whiteness, which our author thus describes:

'The microscope discovers a surface engraved with dents similar to those of a thimble and arranged with exquisite symmetry. At the top and bottom of the 23