Litchfield Enquirer

The carder-bees select for their nest a shallow excavation about a half a foot in diameter; but when they cannot find one to suit their purpose, they undertake the Herculean task of digging one themselves. They cover this hollow with a dome of moss—sometimes, as we have ascertained, of whatever materials may be within their reach; for they do not attempt to bring anything from a distance—not even when they are deprived of the greater portion by an experimental naturalist. Their only method of transporting materials to the building, is by pushing them along the ground—the bee for that purpose, working backwards, with its head turned from the nest. If there is only one bee engaged in this labor, as usually happens in the early spring, when a nest is founded by a solitary female who has outlived the winter, she transports her little bundles of moss or grass by successive backward pushes, till she gets them home. In the latter part of the season, when the hive is populous and can afford more hands, there is an ingenious division of this labor. A file of bees, to the number sometimes of a half a dozen, is established, from the nest to the moss or grass which they intend to use, the heads of all the file of bees being turned from the nest and towards the material. The last bee of the file lays hold of some of the moss with her mandibles, disentangles it from the rest, and having carded it with her forelegs into a sort of felt or small bundle, she pushes it under her body to the next bee, who passes it in the same manner to the next, and so on till it is brought to the border of the nest in the same way as we sometimes see sugar loaves conveyed from a car to a warehouse, by a file of porters, throwing them from one to another. The elevation of the dome, which is all built from the interior, is from four to six inches above the level of the field. Besides the moss or grass, they frequently employ coarse wax to form the ceiling of the vault, for the purpose of keeping out rain, and preventing high winds from destroying it. Before this finishing is given to the nest, we have remarked, that on a fine sunshiny day the upper portion of this dome was opened to the extent of more than an inch, in order, we suppose, to forward the hatching of the eggs in the interior—but on the approach of night this was carefully covered in again. It was remarkable that the opening we have just mentioned was never used by the bees for either their entrance or their exit from the nest, though they were all at work there, and, of course, would have found it the readiest and easiest passage. But they invariably made their exit and their entrance through the covert-way or gallery which opens at the bottom of the nest, and in some nests, is about a foot long and a half an inch wide. This is, no doubt, intended for concealment from field-mice, polecats, wasps, and other depredators.

The Spider.—The spider has many enemies, and hence its web is always in danger of being deranged and damaged. To meet this inconvenience, nature has furnished the insect with a magazine of materials for occasional repairs, and which, although frequently exhausted, still continues to be replenished. This reservoir, however, is drained in time. When spiders grow old, their gum is dried up; but even when this calamity happens, the cunning creature is not destitute of resources which avail it for some time longer. A crafty old spider, having no longer the means of securing a subsistence, seeks out a young one, to which it communicates its wants and necessities; on which the other, either out of respect to old age, or from a fear of old pincers, resigns its place. And if the old spider can find none of its species which will, either from love or fear, resign its net, it must then perish for want of subsistence. The water spider spins no web to catch its prey: but nevertheless offers one of the most singular objects of contemplation. If we possessed no other evidence that the world had been planned and created by an intelligent Being, the habits, proceedings, and instincts of this little creature would be alone sufficient to prove the fact. As soon as it has caught its prey on the shore, it dives to the bottom of the waters, and there devours its booty. It is therefore an amphibious animal; although it appears more fitted to live in contact with the atmosphere than with the water. The diving-bell is a modern invention; and few facts excite our wonder more than the possibility of a man's being enabled to live and move at the bottom of the ocean. This triumph of reason over the unfriendly element, however, was anticipated by an insect—the spider in question. This creature spins some loose threads, which it attaches to the leaves of aquatic plants; it then varnishes them over with a glutinous secretion, which resembles liquid glass, and is so elastic as to admit of considerable distention and contraction; it next lays a coating of this same substance over its own body, and underneath this coating introduces a bubble of air. Naturalists conjecture that it has the power of drawing in this air at the anus from the atmosphere at the surface of the pool; but the precise mode in which it is separated from the body of the atmosphere and introduced under the pellicle, covering the insect's body, has not been clearly ascertained.

Thus clothed, and shining like a ball of quicksilver, it darts through the waters to the spot in which it had fixed its habitation, and, disengaging the bubble from under the pellicle, it dexterously introduces it into a web formed at the bottom. After repeatedly moving from the top to the bottom of the water, and at each journey filled its habitation with a fresh bubble of air, at length the lighter completely expels the heavier fluid, and the insect takes possession of an aerial habitation, commodious and dry, finished in the very midst of the waters. It is about the size and shape of half a pigeon's egg. From this curious chamber the spider hunts, searching sometimes the water, and sometimes the land for its prey, which, when obtained, is transported to this sub-aquatic mansion, and devoured at leisure. The male as well as the female exhibits the same instincts. Early in the spring the former seeks the mansion of the latter, and having enlarged it by the introduction of a little more air, takes up its abode with its mate. About the middle of April the eggs are laid, and packed up in a silken cocoon in a corner of their house, are watched with incessant care by the female.—Family Library.