Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/58

 as the particles are successively added. The little hods-men soon have as much as they can carry, and they then fly off. I was for some time puzzled to know what the bees did with the clay; but I had afterwards plenty of opportunity for ascertaining. They construct their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or perpendicular banks, and the clay is required to build up a wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of a small orifice for their own entrance and exit. Most kinds of Meliponæ are in this way masons as well as workers in wax and pollen-gatherers. One little species (undescribed) not more than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid substance outside the entrance to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated. The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of the pigmy bees are always stationed apparently acting as sentinels.

It is remarkable that none of the American bees have attained that high degree of architectural skill in the construction of their comb which is shown by the European hive bee. The wax cells of the Meliponæ are generally oblong, showing only an approximation to the hexagonal shape in places where several of them are built in contact. It would appear that the Old World has produced in bees, as well as in other families of animals, far more advanced forms than the tropics of the New World.

A hive of the Melipona fasciculata, which I saw opened, contained about two quarts of pleasantly-tasted liquid honey. The bees, as already remarked, have no