Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/57

 But the most numerous and interesting of the clay artificers are the workers of a species of social bee, the Melipona fasciculata. The Meliponæ in tropical America take the place of the true Apides, to which the European hive-bee belongs, and which are here unknown; they are generally much smaller insects than the hive-bees and have no sting. The M. fasciculata is about a third shorter than the Apis mellifica: its colonies are composed of an immense number of individuals; the workers are generally seen collecting pollen in the same way as other bees, but great numbers are employed gathering clay. The rapidity and precision of their movements whilst thus engaged are wonderful. They first scrape the clay with their

the small portions gathered are then cleared by the anterior paws and passed to the second pair of feet, which, in their turn, convey them to the large foliated expansions of the hind shanks which are adapted normally in bees, as every one knows, for the collection of pollen. The middle feet pat the growing pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep them in a compact shape