from her own glands to keep it sweet. Then she hastened forth again for another load, and this fragrant toil engrossed her till nearly sunset, for she was intent on getting in as big a store as possible while daylight lasted.
But the fall of dusk, the coming out of the evening star—a sudden gleam of silver in the pure green-violet sky—meant no relaxation to the impatient Bomba. The poet sings to Hesperus as:
And set'st the weary labourer free,
but it brought not Bomba home to rest, by any means. Of rest and sleep she had had enough already; and, to the work on which she was now feverishly bent, darkness was no hindrance. In the depth of the nest it was always dark; but all her senses were so subtly acute that this mattered not at all.
And now, kneading up a stiff paste of pollen moistened with honey, she proceeded to build a low, circular platform, or pedestal, of the mixture, in the centre of the floor. On this savoury foundation she modelled a spacious cell of wax. Inthe bottom of this cell she laid her first eggs, a baker's dozen of them, and then, sealing the top with a thin waxen film, she began to brood them, solicitously as a mother thrush. For four days she stuck to her task, only leaving it for brief intervals to
