第97章

Besides the Pelopaeus, there were three or four kinds of Trypoxylon, a genus also found in Europe, and which some naturalists have supposed to be parasitic, because the legs are not furnished with the usual row of strong bristles for digging, characteristic of the family to which it belongs.The species of Trypoxylon, however, are all building wasps; two of them which Iobserved (T.albitarse and an undescribed species) provision their nests with spiders, a third (T.aurifrons) with small caterpillars.Their habits are similar to those of the Pelopaeus-- namely, they carry off the clay in their mandibles, and have a different song when they hasten away with the burden to that which they sing whilst at work.Trypoxylon albitarse, which is a large black kind, three-quarters of an inch in length, makes a tremendous fuss while building its cell.It often chooses the walls or doors of chambers for this purpose, and when two or three are at work in the same place, their loud humming keeps the house in an uproar.The cell is a tubular structure about three inches in length.T.aurifrons, a much smaller species, makes a neat little nest shaped like a carafe, building rows of them together in the corners of verandahs.

But the most numerous and interesting of the clay artificers are the workers of a species of social bee, the Melipona fasciculata.

The Meliponae in tropical America take the place of the true Apides, to which the European hive-bee belongs, and which are here unknown; they are generally much smaller insects than the hive-bees and have no sting.The M.fasciculata is about a third shorter than the Apis mellifica: its colonies are composed of an immense number of individuals; the workers are generally seen collecting pollen in the same way as other bees, but great numbers are employed gathering clay.The rapidity and precision of their movements while thus engaged are wonderful.They first scrape the clay with their jaws; the small portions gathered are then cleared by the anterior paws and passed to the second pair of feet, which, in their turn, convey them to the large foliated expansions of the hind shanks which are adapted normally in bees, as every one knows, for the collection of pollen.The middle feet pat the growing pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep them in a compact shape as the particles are successively added.The little hodsmen soon have as much as they can carry, and they then fly off.I was for some time puzzled to know what the bees did with the clay; but I had afterwards plenty of opportunity for ascertaining.They construct their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or perpendicular banks, and the clay is required to build up a wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of a small orifice for their own entrance and exit.

Most kinds of Meliponae are in this way masons as well as workers in wax, and pollen-gatherers.One little species (undescribed)not more than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid substance, outside the entrance to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated.The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of pigmy bees are always stationed, apparently acting as the sentinels.

A hive of the Melipona fasciculata, which I saw opened, contained about two quarts of pleasant-tasting liquid honey.The bees, as already remarked, have no sting, but they bite furiously when their colonies are disturbed.The Indian who plundered the hive was completely covered by them; they took a particular fancy to the hair of his head, and fastened on it by hundreds.I found forty-five species of these bees in different parts of the country; the largest was half an inch in length; the smallest were extremely minute, some kinds being not more than one-twelfth of an inch in size.These tiny fellows are often very troublesome in the woods, on account of their familiarity, for they settle on one's face and hands, and, in crawling about, get into the eyes and mouth, or up the nostrils.

The broad expansion of the hind shanks of bees is applied in some species to other uses besides the conveyance of clay and pollen.

The female of the handsome golden and black Euglossa Surinamensis has this palette of very large size.This species builds its solitary nest also in crevices of walls or trees-- but it closes up the chink with fragments of dried leaves and sticks cemented together, instead of clay.It visits the caju trees, and gathers with its hind legs a small quantity of the gum which exudes from their trunks.To this it adds the other materials required from the neighbouring bushes, and when laden flies off to its nest.

To the south my rambles never extended further than the banks of the Irura, a stream which rises amongst the hills already spoken of, and running through a broad valley, wooded along the margins of the watercourses, falls into the Tapajos, at the head of the bay of Mapiri.All beyond, as before remarked, is terra incognita to the inhabitants of Santarem.The Brazilian settlers on the banks of the Amazons seem to have no taste for explorations by land, and I could find no person willing to accompany me on an excursion further towards the interior.Such a journey would be exceedingly difficult in this country, even if men could be obtained willing to undertake it.Besides, there were reports of a settlement of fierce runaway negroes on the Serra de Mururaru, and it was considered unsafe to go far in that direction, except with a large armed party.