arger pieces is not enough
to provide a cup without cracks in it, the Bee does not fail to improve
the work with two or three small oval pieces applied to the imperfect
joins.

Another advantage results from the snippets of unequal size. The three
or four outer pieces, which are the first placed in position, being
the longest of all, project beyond the mouth, whereas the next, being
shorter, do not come quite up to it. A brim is thus obtained, a ledge
on which the round disks of the lid rest and are prevented from touching
the honey when the Bee presses them into a concave cover. In other
words, at the mouth the circumference comprises only one row of leaves;
lower down it takes two or three, thus restricting the diameter and
securing an hermetic closing.

The cover of the pot consists solely of round pieces, very nearly alike
and more or less numerous. Sometimes I find only two, sometimes I count
as many as ten, closely stacked. At times, the diameter of these pieces
is of an almost mathematical precision, so much so that the edges of the
disk rest upon the ledge. No better result would be obtained had they
been cut out with the aid of compasses. At times, again, the piece
projects slightly beyond the mouth, so that, to enter, it has to be
pressed down and curved cupwise. There is no variation in the diameter
of the first pieces placed in position, those nearest to the honey.
They are all of the same size and thus form a flat cover which does not
encroach on the cell and will not afterwards interfere with the larva,
as a convex ceiling would. The subsequent disks, when the pile is
numerous, are a little larger; they only fit the mouth by yielding to
pressure and becoming concave. The Bee seems to make a point of this
concavity, for it serves as a mould to receive the curved bottom of the
next cell.

When the row of cells is finished, the task still remains of blocking up
the entrance to the gallery with a safety-stopper similar to the earthen
plug with which the Osmia closes her reeds. The Bee then returns to the
free and easy use of the scissors which we noticed at the beginning when
she was fencing off the back part of the Earth-worm's too deep burrow;
she cuts out of the foliage irregular pieces of different shapes and
sizes and often retaining their original deeply-indented margins; and
with all these pieces, very few of which fit at all closely the orifice
to be blocked, she succeeds in making an inviolable doo