[752] Embassy to China, i. 343.
[753] Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt. i. 63.
[755] The nests of this animal which I saw at Fontainebleau (in the pit producing the fossil named after that place) were scarcely half the dimensions here given, but they might probably be younger insects. I kept one in a box of sand several days, in which it regularly formed its pit, whenever obliterated by shaking. The bottom of the box unfortunately came out as I was upon my return to England, and the animal was killed.
[756] Reaum. vi. 333-78. Bonnet, ii. 380.
[757] Bonnet, ix. 414. De Geer, vi. 168. t. 10.
[758] Melitta. *. a. K.
[759] Grew's Rarities of Gresham Colledge, 154. Kirby, Mon. Ap. Angl. i. 131. Melitta. *. a.
[760] Curtis Brit. Ent. t. 61.
[761] Mon. Ap. Angl. i. 173. Apis. **. c. 2. α. From later observations I am inclined to think that these cells may possibly, as in the case of the humble-bee, be in fact formed by the larva previously to becoming a pupa, after having eaten the provision of pollen and honey with which the parent bee had surrounded it. The vermicular shape, however, of the masses with which the cases are surrounded, does not seem easily reconcileable with this supposition, unless they are considered as the excrement of the larva.