Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/144

 encircling the base of the cocoon bundle. In each of these, as she completed it, at intervals of two and three days, she laid five or six more eggs and sealed them up to hatch. She also had to collect more and more honey, more and more pollen, and to build higher the walls of the great honey-pot beside the door as the nectared store increased. When not at any of these tasks she spent her time, not less arduously, in brooding the cocoons, stretching her furry black-and-yellow body to warm them all, like a sitting hen who has been given a bigger clutch than she can properly cover.

Within the nest these days were just one round of uneventful toil; but outside, upon her foraging expeditions among the flowers of field and garden, Bomba's life was not without its risks and its adventures. On account of her great size and strength, and the power of her long (though not very venomous) sting, she had fewer foes to dread than most of her lesser cousins; but, having the sole responsibility of the home, for the present, on her shoulders, she was bound to be careful, though by nature unsuspicious. The biggest and fiercest of northern spiders were of no concern to her, for none would venture within range of that darting flame, her sting, and she could wreck their toughest webs without an effort. But some of the bigger insect-eating birds were a peril against