. British insects : a familiar description of the form, structure, habits, and transformations of insects. eir young bydepositing them in the well-stored nests of those who 232 INSECTS. like such occupations, and thus doing their duty bythemselves and their children, afford a happy illustrationof a favourite proverb— Charity begins at home. A likeness between the habits of these insects andthose of the Cuckoo cannot fail to occur to everyobserver, and indeed to this they owe the name ofCuckoo Bees.* A closer examination by no means dimi-nislies this resemblance ; both are distinguished in thei
. British insects : a familiar description of the form, structure, habits, and transformations of insects. eir young bydepositing them in the well-stored nests of those who 232 INSECTS. like such occupations, and thus doing their duty bythemselves and their children, afford a happy illustrationof a favourite proverb— Charity begins at home. A likeness between the habits of these insects andthose of the Cuckoo cannot fail to occur to everyobserver, and indeed to this they owe the name ofCuckoo Bees.* A closer examination by no means dimi-nislies this resemblance ; both are distinguished in theirtribes by anatomical peculiarities in the mouth and bill of such of the Cuckoo family as are known tobe parasitic is formed differently from that of species evenin the same family which are nest-builders; and this,accompanying a certain form of foot in the parasiticbirds, points to a relation between form and habit whichat least exonerates the bird from the charge of voluntaryidleness. In the same manner we find the jaw of thelittle Nomada very different from that of the burrowing Fig. a. Jaw of Bonibus, Nest-digging Do. Nomada, Parasitic Bee. or cell-making Bees, see fig. b, ^aw of Nomada; andfig. a, jaw, or rather spade of the the Humble Bee, not * Or CucuUnce, a name applied to the whole sub-family, which includesfive genera. HYMENOPTERA.—ACULEATA. 233 to mention the more elaborate instrument provided forthe chief of Bee architects, the working Hive Bee. The legs (fig. 57, 3, p. 222), and indeed the wholeof the body of the Cuckoo Bees, are unprovided with themeans of carrying pollen. It is true, as has already beennoticed, that there are some other Bees, not parasitic,which also appear to be without these organs, but this isone of the difficulties which constantly encounter thestudent, and for which as yet no solution has been found. But tliere is another point in which the Bee and thebird are alike—in their care of their offspring. Thebird, much
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