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After ascertaining the diversity of cotton-fields among our native plants, I naturally had to enquire whether the Cotton-bee would also put up with exotic plants, unknown to her race; whether the insect would show any hesitation in the presence of woolly plants offered for the first time to the rakes of her mandibles.
I do not know the flower-cutter, I have never seen her; but her art tells me plainly enough that she must establish herself in some gallery wrought by others, as, for instance, in an Earth-worm's burrow. We have but to see the nest of a Cotton-bee to convince ourselves that its builder cannot at the same time be an indefatigable navvy.
Next come the dry excretions of the Snail and a few rare little land-shells. A similar jumble of more or less everything found near the nest forms, as we know, the barricade of the Manicate Cotton-bee, who is also an adept at using the Snail's stercoral droppings after these have been dried in the sun.
After the lid of resin and gravel, an entire whorl of the spiral is occupied by a barricade of incongruous remnants, similar to that which, in the reeds, protects the row of cocoons of the Manicate Cotton-bee. It is curious to see exactly the same defensive methods employed by two builders of such different talents, one of whom handles flock, the other gum.
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