File:The transformations (or metamorphoses) of insects (Insecta, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea.) Being an adaptation, for English readers, of M. Émile Blanchard's "Metamorphoses, murs et instincts (14762397974).jpg

Identifier: transformationso00dunc (find matches)
Title: The transformations (or metamorphoses) of insects (Insecta, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea.) Being an adaptation, for English readers, of M. Émile Blanchard's "Metamorphoses, murs et instincts des insects (!)," and a compilation from the works of Newport, Charles Darwin, and others
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Duncan, P. Martin (Peter Martin), 1821-1891 Blanchard, Emile, 1819-1900
Subjects: Metamorphosis of insects
Publisher: London, Paris, New York : Cassell, Petter & Galpin
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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which is rather narrower than the orifice.The whole looks something like a long sleeve with folds upon it.The pieces of leaf are not sewn or attached to each other, butthey are fitted together so perfectly that they retain their shapeeven when they become dry. This pretty funnel-shaped cell, offrom a quarter to a third of an inch long, is destined to be theresidence of a larva of the leaf cutter, for it proceeds to makeup a cake of honey and pollen, places it inside, and then laysan egg. Nothing more is rccjuircd but to wall up the nest, andthe Megachile goes off to the rose bushes again, where it snips offa circular piece of leaf, of a diameter exactly fitting the opening;it pushes this leaf so that its sides fit into the walls of the funnel-shaped roll of leaves which compose the lining of the cell, andendeavours to close it completely. But this intelligent littleworker is not satisfied, for it would appear to be aware thatthe honey which she has laid up with the egg might flow out
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I.E-AF CUTTINCx BEES AM) .NEhlS. rilE MEG A CHILE. 249. through some narrow slit; so she goes off and cuts two morecircular pieces, and uses them as she did the first, and thus thelittle cells are closed by three layers of leafy covering, and some-times by a fourth. A second cell is constructed in the samemanner, and its end fits into the opening of the first, and thusa series of eight or ten of them is usually found, looking like along tubular sleeve. When all this is completed, the eggs beinglaid and the cells victualled, the Mcgachile closes the hole of itsperpendicular shaft with the earth which she dug out in the firstinstance, and this is done so Vv^ell that there is no trace of it left. In the engraving the leaf-cutting bees are depicted cither inflight, on the leaves, at work carrying the leaf to their hole, orupon the ground, and one is completing a cell underground, onthe left hand side. There are some other bees which have three teeth to theirmandibles, and which, perhaps,

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