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made at the expense of some unpleasant sensations ;
for the petrel has the faculty of throwing from the
bill, to a considerable distance, a quantity of foetid
oily matter, more than an equivalent for the capture.
It is said, I do not know with what truth, that this oil
is used medicinally,—and as some say, successfully, in
the cure of rheumatism.
But this is not the only object of interest to the
naturalist who may visit Berhou. The honey bee, of
the species apis centuncularis, is found in the sands of
Berhou. Kirby and Spence’s account of this singular
insect, is so much better than any that I could draw
up, that I make no apology for transferring it to my
pages. “ Apes centunculares, cover the walls of their
cells, with a coating of leaves,—generally selecting
for their hangings, the leaves of trees, especially the
rose, whence they have been known by the name of
the leaf-cutter bee. They differ from apis papaveris,
in excavating longer burrows, and filling them with
several thimble-shaped cells, composed of portions
of leaves so curiously convoluted, that if we were
ignorant in What school they had been taught to
construct them, we should never jcredit their being
the work of an insect. Their entertaining history, so
long ago as 1670, attracted the attention of our
countrymen, Ray, Lister, Willughby, and Sir Edwnrd
King ; but we are indebted for the most complete account
of their proceedure, to Reaumur.
“ The mother bee first excavates a cylindrical hole,
eight or ten inches long, in a horizontal direction,
either in the ground, or in the trunk of a rotten willow
tree, or occasionally, in other decaying wood (in Berhou,
these holes are excavated in the ground; indeed,
there are neither trees, nor large shrubs in the island).
This cavity she fills with six or seven cells, wholly
composed of portions of leaf, of the shape of a thimble
—the convex end of one closely fitting in the open
end of the other. Her first process is, to form the
exterior coating, which is composed of three or four
pieces of larger dimensions than the rest, and of an
oval form. The second coating is formed of portions
of equal size; narrow at one end; but gradually
widening towards the other, where the width equals
half the length. One side of these pieces is the
serrate margin of the leaf from which it was taken;
which, as the pieees are made to lap, one over the
other, is kept on the outside, and that which is cut,
within. The little animal now forms a third coating
of similar materials; the middle of which, as the most
skilful workman would do, in similar circumstances,
she places over the margin of those that form the first
tube ; thus covering, and strengthening the junctures.
Repeating the same process, she gives a fourth, and
sometimes a fifth coating to her nest,—taking care, at
the closed end, or narrow extremity of the cell, to
bend the leaves, so as to form a convex termination.
Having thus finished a cell, her next business is to fill
it, within half a line of the orifice, with a rose-coloured
conserve, composed of honey and pollen, usually collected
from the fiowers of thistles; and then, having
deposited her egg, she closes the orifice with three
pieces of leaf, so exactly circular, that a pair of compasses
could not define their margin with more tru th ;
and coincides so precisely with the walls of the ceil