The
Mason-Bees

J H Fabre

Alan >Stone

THE MASON-BEES

THE MASON-BEES

i.Flx' BY

J. HENRI FABRE

translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON

Garden City New York^

GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY

1925

Copyright, 1914
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

PRINTBD IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

CONTENTS

PAGE

translator's note . . . ;. . vii

I THE MASON-BEES I

II EXPERIMENTS ....... 30

III EX'CHANGING THE NESTS . . .56

IV MORE ENQUIRIES INTO MASON-BEES 73
V THE STORY OF MY CATS 1. i. . I09

VI THE RED ANTS 1 24

VII SOME REFLECTIONS UPON INSECT

PSYCHOLOGY . ^. . . . I58

VIII PARASITES 190

IX THE THEORY OF PARASITISM . . 217

X THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE MASON-
BEE 250

XI THE LEUCOSPES . ;. ,.. . . 277

INDEX .., ., ,., 1., I., 1. 1 I., i.i I. 311

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

THIS volume contains all the essays on tKe
Challcodomae, or Mason-bees proper,
which so greatly enhance the interest of
the early volumes of the Souvenirs entO'
mologiques. I have also included an essay
on the author's Cats and one on Red Ants
— the only study of Ants comprised in the
Souvenirs — both of which bear upon the sense
of direction possessed by the Bees. Those
treating of the Osmise, who are also Mason-
bees, although not usually known by that
name, will be found in a separate volume,
which I have called Bramble Bees and Others,
and in which I have collected all that Fabre
has written on such other Wild Bees as the
Megachiles, or Leaf-cutters, the Cotton-bees,
the Resin-bees, and the Halicti.

The essays entitled The Mason-bees, Ex-
periments and Exchanging the Nests form the
last three chapters of Insect Life, translated
by the author of Mademoiselle Mori and pub-
lished by Messrs. Macmillan, who, with the
greatest courtesy and kindness have given me
their permission to include a new translation
vU

Translator's Note

of these chapters in the present volume.
They did so without fee or consideration of
any kind, merely on my representation that
it would be a great pity if this uniform edi-
tion of Fabre's Works should be rendered
incomplete because certain essays formed part
of volumes of extracts previously published
in this country. Their generosity is almost
unparalleled in my experience; and I wish to
thank them publicly for it in the name of
the author, of the French publishers and of
the English and American publishers, as well
as In my own.

Some of the chapters have appeared in
England in the Daily Mail, the Fortnightly
Review and the English Review; some in
America in Good Housekeeping and the
Youth's Companion; others now see the light
in English for the first time.

I have again to thank Miss Frances Rod-
well for the invaluable assistance which she
has given me in the work of translation and
in the less interesting and more tedious de-
partment of research.

Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
Chelsea, 19 14.

CHAPTER I

THE MASON-BEES

REAUMUR' devoted one of his papers to
the story of the Challcodoma of the
Walls, whom he calls the Mason-bee. I
propose to go on with the story, to complete
it and especially to consider it from a point
of view wholly neglected by that eminent
observer. And, first of all, I am tempted to
tell how I made this Bee's acquaintance.

It was when I first began to teach, about
1843. I had left the normal school at
Vaucluse, some months before, with my
diploma and all the simple enthusiasm of my
eighteen years, and had been sent to Car-
pentras, there to manage the primary school
attached to the college. It was a strange
school, upon my word, notwithstanding its
pompous title of "upper;" a sort of huge
cellar oozing with the perpetual damp en-

iRene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757),
inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of
Memoires pour servir a I'histoire naturelle des insectes.
— Translator's Note.

The Mason-bees

gendered by a well backing on It in the street
outside. For light there was the open door,
when the weather permitted, and a narrow
prison-window, with iron bars and lozenge
panes set in lead. By way of benches there
was a plank fastened to the wall all round the
room, while in the middle was a chair bereft
of its straw, a black-board and a stick of
chalk.

Morning and evening, at the sound of the
bell, there came rushing in some fifty young
imps, who, having shown themselves hopeless
dunces with their Cornelius Nepos, had been
relegated, in the phrase of the day, to "a
few good years of French." Those who had
found mensa too much for them came to me
to get a smattering of grammar. Children
and strapping lads were there, mixed up to-
gether, at very different educational stages,
but all incorrigibly agreed to play tricks
upon the master, the boy master who was no
older than some of them, or even younger.

To the little ones I gave their first lessons
in reading; the intermediate ones I showed
how they should hold their pen to write a
few lines of dictation on their knees; to the
big ones I revealed the secrets of fractions

The Mason-bees

and even the mysteries of Euclid. And to
keep this restless crowd in order, to give each
mind work in accordance with its strength, to
keep attention aroused and lastly to expel dul-
ness from the gloomy room, whose walls
dripped melancholy even more than damp-
ness, my one resource was my tongue, my one
weapon my stick of chalk.

For that matter, there was the same con-
tempt in the other classes for all that was
not Latin or Greek. One instance will be
enough to show how things then stood with
the teaching of physics, the science which
occupies so large a place to-day. The prin-
cipal of the college was a first-rate man, the
worthy Abbe X., who, not caring to dispense
beans and bacon himself, had left the com-
missariat-department to one of his relatives
and had undertaken instead to teach the boys
physics.

Let us attend one of his lessons. The sub-
ject is the barometer. The establishment
happens to possess one, an old apparatus,
covered with dust, hanging on the wall be-
yond the reach of profane hands and bearing
on its face, in large letters, the words stormy,
rain, fair.

The Mason-bees

"The barometer," says the good abbe,
addressing his pupils, whom, In patriarchal
fashion, he calls by their Christian names,
"the barometer tells us If the weather will be
good or bad. You see the words written on
the face — stormy, rain — do you see, Bas-
tien?"

"Yes, I see," says Bastlen, the most mis-
chievous of the lot.

He has been looking through his book and
knows more about the barometer than his
teacher does.

"It consists," the abbe continues, "of a
bent glass tube filled with mercury, which
rises and falls according to the weather. The
shorter leg of this tube Is open; the other
. the other . . . well, we'll see.
Here, Bastlen, you're the tallest, get up on
the chair and just feel with your finger If the
long leg Is open or closed. I can't remember
for certain."

Bastlen climbs on the chair, stands as high
as he can on tip-toe and fumbles with his
finger at the top of the long column. Then,
with a discreet smile spreading under the
silky hairs of his dawning moustache:

"Yes," he says, "that's it. The long leg
4

The Mason-bees

is open at the top. There, I can feel the
hole."

And Bastlen, to confirm his mendacious
statement, keeps wriggling his forefinger at
the top of the tube, while his fellow-conspira-
tors suppress their enjoyment as best they
can,

'That will do," says the unconscious abbe.
"You can get down, Bastien. Take a note
of it, boys : the longer leg of the barometer is
open; take a note of it. It's a thing you
might forget; I had forgotten it myself."

Thus was physics taught. Things im-
proved, however: a master came and came to
stay, one who knew that the long leg of the
barometer is closed. I myself secured tables
on which my pupils were able to write instead
of scribbling on their knees; and, as my class
was daily increasing in numbers, it ended by
being divided into two. As soon as I had an
assistant to look after the younger boys,
things assumed a different aspect.

Among the subjects taught, one in particu-
lar appealed to both master and pupils. This
was open-air geometry, practical surveying.
The college had none of the necessary outfit;
but, with my fat pay — seven hundred francs
5

The Mason-bees

a year, if you please! — I could not hesitate
over the expense. A surveyor's chain and
stakes, arrows, level, square and compass
were bought with my money. A microscopic
graphometer, not much larger than the palm
of one's hand and costing perhaps five francs,
was provided by the establishment. There
was no tripod to it; and I had one made. In
short, my equipment was complete.

And so, when May came, once every week
we left the gloomy school-room for the fields.
It was a regular holiday. The boys disputed
for the honour of carrying the stakes, divided
into bundles of three; and more than one
shoulder, as we walked through the town,
felt the reflected glory of those erudite rods.
I myself — why conceal the fact? — was not
without a certain satisfaction as I piously car-
ried that most delicate and precious appa-
ratus, the historic five-franc graphometer.
The scene of operations was an untilled,
flinty plain, a harmas,^ as we call it in the dis-
trict. Here, no curtain of green hedges or
shrubs prevented me from keeping an eye

iCf. T/ie Life of the Fly, by J. Henri Fabre, trans-
lated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. i. — Trans'
tutor's Note.

6

The Mason-bees

upon my staff; here — an indispensable condi-
tion— I had not the irresistible temptation of
the unripe apricots to fear for my scholars.
The plain stretched far and wide, covered
with nothing but flowering thyme and
rounded pebbles. There was ample scope
for every imaginable polygon; trapezes and
triangles could be combined in all sorts of
ways. The inaccessible distances had ample
elbow-room; and there was even an old ruin,
once a pigeon-house, that lent its perpendicu-
lar to the graphometer's performances.

Well, from the very first day, my atten-
tion was attracted by something suspicious.
If I sent one of the boys to plant a stake, I
would see him stop frequently on his way,
bend down, stand up again, look about and
stoop once more, neglecting his straight line
and his signals. Another, who was told to
pick up the arrows, would forget the iron pin
and take up a pebble instead; and a third,
deaf to the measurements of angles, would
crumble a clod of earth between his fingers.
Most of them were caught licking a bit of
straw. The polygon came to a full stop, the
diagonals suffered. What could the mystery
be?

The Mason-bees

I enquired; and everything was explained.
A born searcher and observer, the scholar
had long known what the master had not yet
heard of, namely, that there was a big black
Bee who made clay nests on the pebbles in the
harmas. These nests contained honey; and
my surveyors used to open them and empty
the cells with a straw. The honey, although
rather strong-flavoured, was most acceptable.
I acquired a taste for it myself and joined
the nest-hunters, putting oft the polygon till
later. It was thus that I first saw Reaumur's
Mason-bee, knowing nothing of her history
and, for that matter, knowing nothing of her
historian.

The magnificent Bee herself, with her
dark-violet wings and black-velvet raiment,
her rustic edifices on the sun-blistered pebbles
amid the thyme, her honey, providing a di-
version from the severities of the compass
and the square, all made a great impression
on my mind; and I wanted to know more than
I had learned from the schoolboys, which was
just how to rob the cells of their honey with
a straw. As it happened, my bookseller had
a gorgeous work on insects for sale. It was
called Histoire natu7'elle des animaux articu-
8

The Mason-bees

les, by de Castelnau/ E. Blanchard^ and
Lucas, ^ and boasted a multitude of most at-
tractive illustrations; but the price of it, the
price of it! No matter; was not my splendid
income supposed to cover everything, food
for the mind as well as food for the body?
Anything extra that I gave to the one I could
save upon the other: a method of balancing
painfully familiar to those who look to science
for their livelihood. The purchase was ef-
fected. That day my professional emolu-
ments were severely strained: I devoted a
month's salary to the acquisition of the book.
I had to resort to miracles of economy for
some time to come before making up the
enormous deficit.

The book was devoured; there Is no other
word for it. In It, I learned the name of my
black Bee; I read for the first time various
details of the habits of Insects; I found, sur-
rounded in my eyes with a sort of halo, the

^Francis Comte de Castelnau de la Porte (1812-1880),
the naturalist and traveller. Castelnau was born in Lon-
don and died at Melbourne. — Translator's Note,

^Emile Blanchard {b. 1820), author of various
works on insects, Spiders, etc. — Translator's Note.

^Pierre Hippolyte Lucas {b. 1815), author of works
on Moths and Butterflies, Crustaceans, etc. — Translator's
Note.

The Mason-bees ,

revered names of Reaumur, Huber^ and Leon
Dufour;- and, while I turned over the pages
for the hundredth time, a voice within me
seemed to whisper:

"You also shall be of their company!"
Ah, fond Illusions, what has come of you?^
But let us banish these recollections, at once
sweet and sad, and speak of the doings of our
black Bee. Chalicodoma, meaning a house
of pebbles, concrete or mortar, would be
a most satisfactory title, were it not that
it has an odd sound to any one un-
familiar with Greek. The rame Is given
to Bees who build their s with mate-
rials similar to those ■* i we employ
for our own dwellings. work of these

^Fran^ois Huber (1750-1831), tae Swiss naturalist,
author of Nouvelles observations sur les abeilles. He
early became blind from excessive study and conducted
his scientific work thereafter with the aid of his wife. —
Translator's Note.

2Jean Marie Leon Dufour (1780-1865), an army sur-
geon who served with distinction in several campaigns
and subsequently practised as a doctor in the Landcs,
where he attained great eminence as a naturalist Fabre
often refers to him as the Wizard of the Landes. Cf.
The Life of the Spider, by J. Henri Fabre, translated
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap, i; and The Life
of the Fly: chap. i. — Translator's Note.

^The present essay is one of the earliest in the Souve-
nirs Entomologiques, — Translator's Note.
10

The Mason-bees

Insects is masonry; only It Is turned out by a
rustic mason more used to hard clay than to
hewn stone. Reaumur, who knew nothing
of scientific classification — a fact which makes
many of his papers very difficult to under-
stand— named the worker after her work and
called our builders In dried clay Mason-bees,
which describes them exactly.

We have two of them In our district: the
Chalicodoma of the Walls (Chalicodoma
mtiraria) , whose history Reaumur gives us
in a masterly fashion; and the Sicilian Chali-
codoma (C. sicula),^ who Is not peculiar to
the land of Etna, as her name might suggest,
but is also found In Greece, In Algeria and In
the south of France, particularly in the de-
partment of Vaucluse, where she is one of the
commonest Bees to be seen In the month of
May. In the former species, the two sexes
are so unlike In colouring that a novice, sur-
prised at observing them come out of the same
nest, would at first take them for strangers to

*For reasons that will become apparent after the
reader has learnt their habits, the author also speaks
of the Mason-bee of the Walls and the Sicilian Mason-
bee as the Mason-bee of the Pebbles and the Mason-bee
of the Sheds respectively. Cf. Chapter IV., footnote. —
Translator's Note.

II

The Mason-bees

each other. The female is of a splendid vel-
vety black, with dark-violet wings. In the
male, the black velvet is replaced by a rather
bright brick-red fleece. The second species,
which is much smaller, does not show this
contrast of colour: the two sexes wear the
same costume, a general mixture of brown,
red and grey, while the tips of the wings,
washed with violet on a bronzed ground, re-
call, but only faintly, the rich purple of the
former species. Both begin their labours at
the same period, in the early part of May.

As Reaumur tells us, the Chalicodoma of
the Walls in the northern provinces selects a
wall directly facing the sun and one not cov-
ered with plaster, which might come off and
imperil the future of the ceils. She confides
her buildings only to solid foundations, such
as bare stone. I find her equally prudent in
the south; but, for some reason which I do
not know, she here generally prefers some
other base to the stone of a wall. A rounded
pebble, often hardly larger than one's fist,
one of those cobbles with which the waters of
the glacial period covered the terraces of the
Rhone Valley, forms the most popular sup-
port. The extreme abundance of these sites

12

The Mason-bees

might easily influence the Bee's choice: all
our less elevated uplands, all our arid thyme-
clad grounds are nothing but water-worn
stones cemented with red earth. In the val-
leys, the Chalicodoma has also the pebbles
of the mountain-streams at her disposal.
Near Orange, for instance, her favourite
spots are the alluvia of the Aygues, with their
carpets of smooth pebbles no longer visited
by the waters. Lastly, if a cobble be want-
ing, the Mason-bee will establish her nest on
any sort of stone, on a mile-stone or a
boundary-wall.

The Sicilian Chalicodoma has an even
greater variety of choice. Her most cher-
ished site is the lower surface of the project-
ing tiles of a roof. There is not a cottage in
the fields, however small, but shelters her
nests under the eaves. Here, each spring,
she settles in populous colonies, whose ma-
sonry, handed down from one generation to
the next and enlarged year by year, ends by
covering considerable surfaces. I have seen
some of these nests, under the tiles of a shed,
spreading over an area of five or six square
yards. When the colony was hard at work,
the busy, buzzing crowd was enough to make
13

The Mason-bees

one giddy. The under side of a balcony also
pleases the Mason-bee, as does the embrasure
of a disused window, especially if it is closed
by a blind whose slats allow her a free pas-
sage. But these are popular resorts, where
hundreds and thousands of workers labour,
each for herself. If she be alone, which hap-
pens pretty often, the Sicilian Mason-bee in-
stals herself in the first little nook handy, pro-
vided that it supplies a solid foundation and
warmth. As for the nature of this founda-
tion, she does not seem to mind. I have seen
her build on the bare stone, on bricks, on the
wood of a shutter and even on the window-
panes of a shed. One thing only does not
suit her: the plaster of our houses. She is
as prudent as her kinswoman and would fear
the ruin of her cells, if she entrusted them to
a support which might possibly fall.

Lastly, for reasons which I am still unable
to explain to my own satisfaction, the Sicilian
Mason-bee often changes the position of her
building entirely, turning her heavy house of
clay, which would seem to require the solid
support of a rock, into an aerial dwelling. A
hedge-shrub of any kind whatever — haw-
thorn, pomegranate, Christ's-thorn — pro-

The Mason-bees

vides her with a foundation, usually as high
as a man's head. The holm-oak and the elm
give her a greater altitude. She chooses in
the bushy clump a twig no thicker than a
straw; and on this narrow base she constructs
her edifice with the same mortar that she
would employ under a balcony or the ledge of
a roof. When finished, the nest is a ball of
earth, bisected by the twig. It is the size of
an apricot when the work of a single insect
and of one's fist if several have collaborated;
but this latter case is rare.

Both Bees use the same materials: calca-
reous clay, mingled with a little sand and
kneaded into a paste with the mason's own
saliva. Damp places, which would facilitate
the quarrying and reduce the expenditure of
saliva for mixing the mortar, are scorned by
the Mason-bees, who refuse fresh earth for
building even as our own builders refuse plas-
ter and lime that have long lost their settling-
properties. These materials, when soaked
with pure moisture, would not hold properly.
What is wanted is a dry dust, which
greedily absorbs the disgorged saliva and
forms with the latter's albuminous elements
a sort of readily-hardening Roman cement,
15

The Mason-bees

something in short, resembling the cement
which we obtain with quicklime and white of

egg.

The mortar-quarry which the Sicilian
Mason-bee prefers to work is a frequented
highway, whose metal of chalky flints,
crushed by the passing wheels, has become a
smooth surface, like a continuous flagstone.
Whether settling on a twig in a hedge or fix-
ing her abode under the eaves of some rural
dwelling, she always goes for her building-
materials to the nearest path or road, with-
out allowing herself to be distracted from
her business by the constant traflfic of people
and cattle. You should see the active Bee at
work when the road is dazzling white under
the rays of a hot sun. Between the adjoin-
ing farm, which is the building-yard, and the
road, in which the mortar is prepared, we
hear the deep hum of the Bees perpetually
crossing one another as they go to and fro.
The air seems traversed by incessant trails
of smoke, so straight and rapid is the work-
er's flight. Those on the way to the nest
carry tiny pellets of mortar, the size of small
shot; those who return at once settle on the
driest and hardest spots. Their whole body
i6

The Mason-bees

aquiver, they scrape with the tips of their
mandibles and rake with their front tarsi to
extract atoms of earth and grains of sand,
which, rolled between their teeth, become
impregnated with saliva and form a solid
mass. The work is pursued so vigorously,
that the worker lets herself be crushed under
the feet of the passers-by rather than abandon
her task.

On the other hand, the Mason-bee of the
Walls, who seeks solitude, far from human
habitations, rarely shows herself on the beaten
paths, perhaps because these are too far from
the places where she builds. So long as she
can find dry earth, rich in small gravel, near
the pebble chosen as the site of her nest, that
is all she asks.

The Bee may either build an entirely new
nest on a site as yet unoccupied, or she may
use the cells of an old nest, after repairing
them. Let us consider the former case first.
After selecting her pebble, the Mason-bee of
the Walls arrives with a little ball of mortar
in her mandibles and lays it in a circular pad
on the surface of the stone. The forelegs
and above all the mandibles, which are the
mason's chief tools, work the material, which
17

The Mason-bees

is kept plastic by the salivary fluid as this Is
gradually disgorged. In order to consolidate
the clay, angular bits of gravel, the size of a
lentil, are inserted separately, but only on the
outside, in the as yet soft mass. This is the
foundation of the structure. Fresh layers
follow, until the cell has attained the desired
height of two or three centimetres.^

Man's masonry Is formed of stones laid one
above the other and cemented together with
lime. The Chalicodoma's work can bear
comparison with ours. To economize la-
bour and mortar, the Bee employs coarse ma-
terials, big pieces of gravel, which to her
represent hewn stones. She chooses them
carefully one by one, picks out the hardest
bits, generally with corners, which, fitting one
into the other, give mutual support and con-
tribute to the solidity of the whole. Layers
of mortar, sparingly applied, hold them to-
gether. The outside of the cell thus assumes
the appearance of a piece of rustic architect-
ure, In which the stones project with their
natural Irregularities; but the inside, which
requires a more even surface in order not to

^Three-quarters of an inch to one inch. — Translator's
Note.

l8

The Mason-bees

hurt the larva's tender skin, is covered with
a coat of pure mortar. This inner whitewash,
however, is put on without any attempt at
art, indeed, one might say that it is ladled on
in great splashes; and the grub takes care,
after finishing its mess of honey, to make it-
self a cocoon and hang the rude walls of its
abode with silk. On the other hand, the An-
thophoras and the Halicti, two species of
Wild Bees whose grubs weave no cocoon,
delicately glaze the inside of their earthen
cells and give them the gloss of polished
Ivory.

The structure, whose axis is nearly always
vertical and whose orifice faces upwards so as
not to let the honey escape, varies a little In
shape according to the supporting base.
When set on a horizontal surface, it rises like
a little oval tower; when fixed against an up-
right or slanting surface, It resembles the half
of a thimble divided from top to bottom. In
this case, the support itself, the pebble, com-
pletes the outer wall.

When the cell is finished, the Bee at once

sets to work to victual it. The flowers round

about, especially those of the yellow broom

{Genista scoparia), which In May deck the

19

The Mason-bees

pebbly borders of the mountain streams with
gold, supply her with sugary liquid and pol-
len. She comes with her crop swollen with
honey and her belly yellowed underneath with
pollen-dust. She dives head first into the
cell; and for a few moments you see some
spasmodic jerks which show that she is dis-
gorging the honey-syrup. After emptying her
crop, she comes out of the cell, only to go in
again at once, but this time backwards. The
Bee now brushes the lower side of her ab-
domen with her two hindlegs and rids her-
self of her load of pollen. Once more she
comes out and once more goes in head first.
It is a question of stirring the materials, with
her mandibles for a spoon, and making the
whole into a homogeneous mixture. This
mixing-operation is not repeated after every
journey: it takes place only at long intervals,
when a considerable quantity of material has
been accumulated.

The victualling is complete when the cell
is half full. An egg must now be laid on the
top of the paste and the house must be closed.
All this is done without delay. The cover
consists of a lid of pure mortar, which the
Bee builds by degrees, working from the cir-

20

The Mason-bees

cumference to the centre. Two days at most
appeared to me to be enough for everything,
provided that no bad weather — rain or
merely clouds — came to interrupt the labour.
Then a second cell is built, backing on the
first and provisioned in the same manner. A
third, a fourth and so on follow, each sup-
plied with honey and an egg and closed be-
fore the foundations of the next are laid.
Each task begun is continued until it is quite
finished; the Bee never commences a new cell
until the four processes needed for the con-
struction of its predecessor are completed:
the building, the victualling, the laying of the
egg and the closing of the cell.

As the Mason-bee of the Walls always
works by herself on the pebble which she has
chosen and even shows herself very jealous
of her site when her neighbours alight upon
It, the number of cells set back to back upon
one pebble Is not large, usually varying be-
tween six and ten. Do some eight grubs
represent the Bee's whole family? Or does
she afterward go and establish a more numer-
ous progeny on other boulders? The surface
of the same stone is spacious enough to pro-
vide a support for further cells if the num-

21

The Mason-bees

ber of eggs called for them; the Bee could
build there very comfortably, without hunt-
ing for another site, without leaving the peb-
ble to which she is attached by habit and
long acquaintance. It seems to me, therefore,
exceedingly probable that the family is a
small one and that it is all installed on the one
boulder, at any rate when the Mason-bee is
building a new home.

The six to ten cells composing the cluster
are certainly a solid dwelling, with their rus-
tic gravel covering; but the thickness of their
walls and lids, two millimetres^ at most, seems
hardly sufficient to protect the grubs against
the inclemencies of the weather. Set on Its
stone in the open air, without any sort of
shelter, the nest will have to undergo the heat
of summer, which will turn each cell into a
stifling furnace, followed by the autumn
rains, which will slowly wear away the stone-
work, and by the winter frosts, which will
crumble what the rains have respected. How-
ever hard the cement may be, can it possibly
resist all these agents of destruction? And,
even if it does resist, will not the grubs, shel-

^.078 inch. — Translator's Note.
22

The Mason-bees

tered by top thin a wall, have to suffer from
excess of heat in summer and of cold in win-
ter?

Without arguing all this out, the Bee nev-
ertheless acts wisely. When all the cells are
finished, she builds a thick cover over the
group, formed of a material, impermeable to
water and a bad conductor of heat, which acts
as a protection at the same time against
damp, heat and cold. This material is the
usual mortar, made of earth mixed with
saliva, but on this occasion with no small
stones in it. The Bee applies it pellet by pel-
let, trowelful by trowelful, to the depth of a
centimetre^ over the cluster of cells, which
disappear entirely under the clay covering.
When this is done, the nest has the shape of
a rough dome, equal in size to half an orange.
One would take it for a round lump of mud
which had been thrown and half crushed
against a stone and had then dried where it
was. Nothing outside betrays the contents,
no semblance of cells, no semblance of work.
To the inexperienced eye, it is a chance splash
of mud and nothing more.

*.39 inch. — Translator's Note.
23

The Mason-bees

This outer covering dries as quickly as do
our hydraulic cements; and the nest is now
almost as hard as a stone. It takes a knife
with a strong blade to break open the edifice.
And I would add, in conclusion, that, under
its final form, the nest in no way recalls the
original work, so much so that one would
imagine the cells of the outset, those elegant
turrets covered with stuccowork, and the
dome of the finish, looking like a mere lump
of mud, to be the product of two different
species. But scrape away the crust of cement
and we shall easily recognize the cells below
and their layers of tiny pebbles.

Instead of building a brand-new nest, on
a hitherto unoccupied boulder, the Mason-
bee of the Walls is always glad to make use
of the old nests which have lasted through the
year without suffering any damage worth
mentioning. The mortar dome has remained
very much what it was at the beginning,
thanks to the solidity of the masonry, only it
is perforated with a number of round holes,
corresponding with the chambers, the cells
inhabited by past generations of larvae.
Dwellings such as these, which need only a
little repair to put them in good condition,
24

The Mason-bees

save a great deal of time and trouble; and
the Mason-bees look out for them and do not
decide to build new nests except when the old
ones are wanting.

From one and the same dome there issue
several inhabitants, brothers and sisters, ruddy
males and black females, all the offspring of
the same Bee. The males lead a careless ex-
istence, know nothing of work and do not re-
turn to the clay houses except for a brief mo-
ment to woo the ladies; nor do they reck of
the deserted cabin. What they want is the
nectar in the flower-cups, not mortar to mix
between their mandibles. There remain the
young mothers, who alone are charged
with the future of the family. To which of
them will the inheritance of the old nest re-
vert? As sisters, they have equal rights to it:
so our code would decide, since the day when
it shook itself free of the old savage right of
primogeniture. But the Mason-bees have not
yet got beyond the primitive basis of
property, the right of the first occupant.

When, therefore, the laying-time is at
hand, the Bee takes possession of the first va-
cant nest that suits her and settles there; and
woe to any sister or neighbour who shall
25

The Mason-bees

henceforth dare to contest her ownership.
Hot pursuits and fierce blows will soon put
the newcomer to flight. Of the various cells
that yawn like so many wells around the
dome, only one is needed at the moment; but
the Bee rightly calculates that the others will
be useful presently for the other eggs; and
she watches them all with jealous vigilance to
drive away possible visitors. Indeed, I do not
remember ever seeing two masons working
on the same pebble.

The task is now very simple. The Bee ex-
amines the old cell to see what parts require
repairing. She tears off the strips of cocoon
hanging from the walls, removes the frag-
ments of clay that fell from the ceiling when
pierced by the last inhabitant to make her
exit, gives a coat of mortar to the dilapidated
parts, mends the opening a little; and that Is
all. Next come the storing, the laying of the
eggs and the closing of the chamber. When
all the cells, one after the other, are thus fur-
nished, the outer cover, the mortar dome, re-
ceives a few repairs If it needs them ; and the
thing is done.

The Sicilian Mason-bee prefers company
to a solitary life and establishes herself in her
26

The Mason-bees

hundreds, very often in many thousands, un-
der the tiles of a shed or the edge of a roof.
These do not constitute a true society, with
common interests to which all attend, but a
mere gathering, where each works for herself
and is not concerned with the rest, in short,
a throng of workers recalling the swarm of a
hive only by their numbers and their eager-
ness. The mortar employed is the same as
that of the Mason-bee of the Walls, equally
unyielding and waterproof, but thinner and
without pebbles. The old nests are used first.
Every free chamber is repaired, stocked and
sealed up. But the old cells are far from
sufficient for the population, which increases
rapidly from year to year. Then, on the sur-
face of the nest, whose chambers are hidden
under the old general mortar covering, new
cells are built, as the needs of the laying-time
call for them. They are placed horizontally,
or nearly so, side by side, with no attempt at
orderly arrangement. Each architect has
plenty of elbow-room and builds as and where
she pleases, on the one condition that she
does not hamper her neighbours' work; other-
wise she can look out for rough handling
from the parties Interested. The cells, there-
27

The Mason-bees

fore, accumulate at random in this work-yard
where there is no organization. Their shape
is that of a thimble divided down the mid-
dle; and their walls are completed either by
the adjoining cells or by the surface of the old
nest. Outside, they are rough and display
successive layers of knotted cords correspond-
ing with the different courses of mortar. In-
side, the walls are flat without being smooth;
later on, the grub's cocoon will make up for
any lack of polish.

Each cell, as built, is stocked and walled up
immediately, as we have seen with the
Mason-bee of the Walls. This work goes on
throughout the best part of May. All the
eggs are laid at last; and then the Bees, with-
out drawing distinctions between what does
and what does not belong to them, set
to work in common on a general protection
for the colony. This is a thick coat of mor-
tar, which fills up the gaps and covers all the
cells. In the end, the common nest presents
the appearance of a wide expanse of dry mud,
with very irregular protuberances, thicker in
the middle, the original nucleus of the esta-
blishment, thinner at the edges, where as yet
there are only newly-built cells, and varying
28

The Mason-bees

greatly In dimensions according to the num-
ber of workers and therefore to the age of the
nest first founded. Some of these nests are
hardly larger than one's hand, while others
occupy the greater part of the projecting edge
of a roof and are measured by square yards.
When working alone, which is not unusual,
on the shutter of a disused window, on a stone,
or on a twig in some hedge, the Sicilian Chali-
codoma behaves in just the same way. For
instance, should she settle on a twig, the Bee
begins by solidly cementing the base of her
cell to the slight foundation. Next, the
building rises, taking the form of a little up-
right turret. This first cell, when victualled
and sealed, is followed by another, having as
Its support, in addition to the twig, the cells
already built. From six to ten chambers are
thus grouped side by side. Lastly, one coat
of mortar covers everything, including the
twig itself, which provides a firm mainstay
for the whole.

39

CHAPTER II

EXPERIMENTS

AS THE nests of the Mason-bee of the
Walls are erected on small-sized peb-
bles, which can be easily carried wherever you
like and moved about from one place to an-
other, without disturbing either the work of
the builder or the repose of the occupants of
the cells, they lend themselves readily to prac-
tical experiment, the only method that can
throw a little light on the nature of Instinct.
To study the insect's mental faculties to any
purpose, it is not enough for the observer to
be able to profit by some happy combination
of circumstances: he must know how to pro-
duce other combinations, vary them as much
as possible and to test them by substitution
and interchange. Lastly, to provide science
with a solid basis of facts, he must experi-
ment. In this way, the evidence of formal
records will one day dispel the fantastic le-
gends with which our books are crowded : the
30

Experiments

Sacred Beetle^ calling on his comrades to lend
a helping hand in dragging his pellet out of a
rut; the Sphex^ cutting up her fly so as to be
able to carry him despite the obstacle of the
wind; and all the other fallacies which are the
stock-in-trade of those who wish to see in the
animal world what is not really there. In
this way, again, materials will be prepared
which will one day be worked up by the hand
of a master and consign hasty and unfounded
theories to oblivion.

Reaumur, as a rule, confines himself to
stating facts as he sees them in the normal
course of events and does not try to probe
deeper into the insect's ingenuity by means of
artificially produced conditions. In his time,
everything had yet to be done; and the har-
vest was so great that the illustrious harvester
went straight to what was most urgent, the
gathering of the crop, and left his successors

^A Dung-beetle who rolls the manure of cattle into
balls for his own consumption and that of his young.
Cf. Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre, translated by the author
of Mademoiselle Mori: chaps, i. and ii.; and TJie Life
and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri Fabre, translated
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps, i. to iv. —
Translator's Note.

"A species of Hunting Wasp. Cf. Insect Life: chaps.
vi. and xii. — Translator's Note.

31

The Mason-bees

to examine the grain and the ear in detail.
Nevertheless, in connection with the Chali-
codoma of the Walls, he mentions an experi-
ment made by his friend, Duhamel/ He tells
us how a Mason-bee's nest was enclosed in a
glass funnel, the mouth of which was cov-
ered merely with a bit of gauze. From it
there issued three males, who, after vanquish-
ing mortar as hard as stone, either never
thought of piercing the flimsy gauze or else
deemed the work beyond their strength. The
three bees died under the funnel. Reaumur
adds that insects generally know only how to
do what they have to do in the ordinary
course of nature.

The experiment does not satisfy me, for
two reasons: first, to ask workers equipped
with tools for cutting clay as hard as granite
to cut a piece of gauze does not strike me as
a happy inspiration; you cannot expect a
navvy's pickaxe to do the same work as a
dressmaker's scissors. Secondly, the trans-
parent glass prison seems to me ill-chosen. As
soon as the insect has made a passage through

iHenri Louis Duhamel du Monceau (17001781), a
distinguished writer on botany and agriculture. — Trans-
lator's Note.

32

Experiments

the thickness of its earthen dome, it finds It-
self in broad daylight; and to it daylight
means the final deliverance, means liberty. It
strikes against an invisible obstacle, the glass;
and to it glass Is nothing at all and yet an
obstruction. On the far side, it sees free
space, bathed in sunshine. It wears itself out
in efforts to fly there, unable to understand
the futile nature of its attempts against that
strange barrier which it cannot see. It per-
ishes, at last, of exhaustion, without, in its
obstinacy, giving a glance at the gauze closing
the conical chimney. I must devise a means
of renewing the experiment under better con-
ditions.

The obstacle which I select is ordinary
brown paper, stout enough to keep the insect
in the dark and thin enough not to offer seri-
ous resistance to the prisoner's efforts. Aa
there Is a great difference, in so far as the ac-
tual nature of the barrier is concerned, be-
tween a paper partition and a clay ceiling, let
us begin by enquiring If the Mason-bee of the
Walls knows how or rather is able to make
her way through one of these partitions. The
mandibles are pickaxes suitable for breaking
through hard mortar: are they also scissors
33

The Mason-bees

capable of cutting a thin membrane? This
is tlie point to look into first of all.

In February, by which time the insect is in
its perfect state, I take a certain number of
cocoons, without damaging them, from their
cells and insert them each in a separate stump
of reed, closed at one end by the natural wall
of the node and open at the other. These
pieces of reed represent the cells of the nest.
The cocoons are introduced with the insect's
head turned toward the opening. Lastly, my
artificial cells are closed in different ways.
Some receive a stopper of kneaded clay,
which, when dry, will correspond in thickness
and consistency with the mortar ceiling of the
natural nest. Others are plugged with a
cylinder of sorghum, at least a centimetre^
thick; and the remainder with a disk of brown
paper solidly fastened by the edge. All these
bits of reed are placed side by side in a box,
standing upright, with the roof of my mak-
ing at the top. The insects, therefore, are
in the exact position which they occupied in
the nest. To open a passage, they must do
what they would have done without my inter-

1.39 inch. — Translator's Note.
34

Experiments

ference, they must break through the wall
situated above their heads, I shelter the
whole under a wide bell-glass and wait for the
month of May, the period of the deliverance.
The results far exceed my anticipations.
The clay stopper, the work of my fingers, is
perforated with a round hole, differing in no
wise from that which the Mason-bee contrives
through her native mortar dome. The vege-
table barrier, new to my prisoners, namely,
the sorghum cylinder, also opens with a neat
orifice, which might have been the work of a
punch. Lastly, the brown-paper cover allows
the Bee to make her exit not by bursting
through, by making a violent rent, but once
more by a clearly-defined round hole. My
Bees therefore are capable of a task for which
they were not born; to come out of their reed
cells they do what probably none of their race
did before them ; they perforate the wall of
sorghum-pith, they make a hole In the paper
barrier, just as they would have pierced their
natural clay ceiling. When the moment
comes to free themselves, the nature of the
impediment does not stop them, provided that
It be not beyond their strength ; and hence-
forth the argument of incapacity cannot be
35

The Mason-bees

raised when a mere paper barrier is in ques-
tion.

In addition to the cells made out of bits of
reed, I put under the bell-glass, at the same
time, two nests which are intact and still rest-
ing on their pebbles. To one of them I have
attached a sheet of brown paper pressed close
against the mortar dome. In order to come
out, the insect will have to pierce first the
dome and then the paper, which follows with-
out any intervening space. Over the other,
I have placed a little brown-paper cone,
gummed to the pebble. There is here, there-
fore, as in the first case, a double wall — a clay-
partition and a paper partition — with this dif-
ference, that the two walls do not come im-
mediately after each other, but are separated
by an empty space of about a centimetre at
the bottom, increasing as the cone rises.

The results of these two experiments are
quite different. The Bees in the nest to which
a sheet of paper was tightly stuck, come out
by piercing the two enclosures, of which the
outer wall, the paper wrapper, is perforated
with a very clean round hole, as we have al-
ready seen in the reed cells closed with a lid
of the same material. We thug become

Experiments

aware, for the second time, that, when the
Mason-bee is stopped by a paper barrier, the
reason is not her incapacity to overcome the
obstacle. On the other hand, the occupants
of the nest covered with the cone, after mak-
ing their way through the earthen dome, find-
ing the sheet of paper at some distance, do
not even try to perforate this obstacle, which
they would have conquered so easily had it
been fastened to the nest. They die under the
cover without making any attempt to escape.
Even so did Reaumur's Bees perish In the
glass funnel, where their liberty depended
only upon their cutting through a bit of gauze.
This fact strikes me as rich In inferences.
What? Here are sturdy insects, to whom
boring through granite Is mere play, to whom
a stopper of soft wood and a paper partition
are walls quite easy to perforate despite the
novelty of the material; and yet these vigor-
our housebreakers allow themselves to perish
stupidly in the prison of a paper bag, which
they could have torn open with one stroke of
their mandibles ? They are capable of tearing
It, but they do not dream of doing so ! There
can be only one explanation of this suicidal
inaction. The Insect Is well-endowtd with
37

The Mason-bees

tools and instinctive faculties for accomplish-
ing the final act of its metamorphosis, namely,
the act of emerging from the cocoon and from
the cell. Its mandibles provide it with scis-
sors, file, pickaxe and lever wherewith to cut,
gnaw through and demolish either its cocoon
and its mortar enclosure or any other not too
obstinate barrier substituted for the natural
covering of the nest. Moreover — and this is
an important proviso, but for which the outfit
would be useless — it has, I will not say the will
to use those tools, but a secret stimulus invi-
ting it to employ them. When the hour for
the emergence arrives, this stimulus is aroused
and the insect sets to work to bore a passage.
It little cares in this case whether the material
to be pierced be the natural mortar, sorghum-
pith, or paper; the lid that holds it imprisoned
does not resist for long. Nor even does it
care if the obstacle be increased in thickness
and a paper wall be added outside the wall of
clay: the two barriers, with no interval be-
tween them, form but one to the Bee, who
passes through them because the act of get-
ting out is still one act and one only. With
the paper cone, whose wall is a little way off,
the conditions are changed, though the total
38

Experiments

thickness of wall is really the same. Once out-
side its earthen abode, the insect has done all
that it was destined to do In order to release
Itself; to move freely on the mortar dome
represents to it the end of the release, the end
of the act of boring. Around the nest a new
barrier appears, the wall made by the paper
bag; but, in order to pierce this, the insect
would have to repeat the act which It has just
accomplished, the act which it is not Intended
to perform more than once in Its life; it
would, in short, have to make into a double
act that which by nature Is a single one; and
the insect cannot do this, for the sole reason
that It has not the wish to. The Mason-bee
perishes for lack of the smallest gleam of in-
telligence. And this is the singular Intellect
In which it Is the fashion nowadays to see a
germ of human reason ! The fashion will
pass and the facts remain, bringing us back
to the good old notions of the soul and Its
Immortal destinies,

Reaumur tells us how his friend, Duhamel,
having seized a Mason-bee with a forceps
when she had half entered the cell, head fore-
most, to fill it with pollen-paste, carried her
to a closet at some distance from the spot
39

The Mason-be^

where he captured her. The Bee got away
from him in this closet and flew out through
the window. Duhamel made straight for the
nest. The mason arrived almost as soon as
he did and renewed her work. She only
seemed a little wilder, says the narrator, in
conclusion.

Why were you not here with me, revered
master, on the banks of the Aygues, which
for three-fourths of the year is a vast expanse
of pebbles and a mighty torrent when it rains?
I should have shown you something infinitely
better than the fugitive escaping from the
forceps. You would have witnessed — and,
in so doing, would have shared my surprise
— not the brief flight of the Mason who, car-
ried to the nearest room, rekises herself and
forthwith returns to her nest in that familiar
neighbourhood, but long journeys through un-
known country. You would have seen the
Bee whom I carried to a great distance from
her home, to quite unfamiliar ground, find
her way back with a geographical sense
of which the Swallow, the Martin and
the Carrier-pigeon would not have been
ashamed; and you would have asked your-
self, as I did, what incomprehensible know-
40

Experiments

ledge of the local map guides that mother
seeking her nest.

To come to facts: it is a matter of repeat-
ing with the Mason-bee of the Walls my
former experiments with the Cerceris-wasps,^
of carrying the insect, in the dark, a long
way from its nest, marking it and then
leaving it to its own resources. In case any
one should wish to try the experiment for him-
self, I make him a present of my manner of
operation, which may save him time at the
outset. The insect intended for a long jour-
ney must obviously be handled with certain
precautions. There must be no forceps em-
ployed, no pincers, which might maim a wing,
strain it and weaken the power of flight.
While the Bee is in her cell, absorbed in her
work, I place a small glass test-tube over it.
The Mason, when she flies away, rushes into
the tube, which enables me, without touching
her, to transfer her at once into a screw of
paper. This I quickly close. A tin box, an
ordinary botanizing-case, serves to convey the
prisoners, each in her separate paper bag.

The most delicate business, that of mark-
ing each captive before setting her free, is left

*Cf. Insect Life; chap. xix. — Translator's Note.
41

The Mason-bees

to be done on the spot selected for the
starting-point. I use finely-powdered chalk,
steeped in a strong solution of gum arable.
The mixture, applied to some part of the in-
sect with a straw, leaves a white patch, which
soon dries and adheres to the fleece. When
a particular Mason-bee has to be marked so
as to distinguish her from another in short
experiments, such as I shall describe presently,
I confine myself to touching the tip of the
abdomen with my straw while the insect is
half in the cell, head downwards. The slight
touch is not noticed by the Bee, who continues
her work quite undisturbed; but the mark is
not very deep and moreover it Is in a rather
bad place for any prolonged experiment, for
the Bee is constantly brushing her belly to de-
tach the pollen and is sure to rub It off sooner
or later. I therefore make another one, drop-
ing the sticky chalk right in the middle of the
thorax, between the wings.

It is hardly possible to wear gloves at this
work: the fingers need all their deftness to
take up the restless Bee delicately and to over-
power her without rough pressure. It Is
easily seen that, though the job may yield no
other profit, you are at least sure of being
42

Experiments

stung. The sting can be avoided with a little
dexterity, but not always. You have to put
up with it. In any case, the Mason-bee's sting
is far less painful than that of the Hive-bee.
The white spot is dropped on the thorax; the
mason flies off; and the mark dries on the
journey.

I start with two Mason-bees of the Walls
working at their nests on the pebbles in the
alluvia of the Aygues, not far from Serignan.
I carry them home with me to Orange, where
I release them after marking them. Accord-
ing to the ordnance-survey map, the distance
is about two and a half miles as the crow flies.
The captives are set at liberty in the evening,
at a time when the Bees begin to leave off
work for the day. It is therefore probable
that my two Bees will spend their night in the
neighbourhood.

Next morning, I go to the nests. The
weather is still too cool and the works are
suspended. When the dew has gone, the
masons begin work. I see one, but without a
white spot, bringing pollen to one of the nests
which had been occupied by the travellers
whom I am expecting. She is a stranger who,
finding the cell whose owner I myself had
43

The Mason-bees

exiled untenanted, has installed herself there
and made it her property, not knowing that
it is already the property of another. She
has perhaps been victualling it since yesterday
evening. Close upon ten o'clock, when the
heat is at its full, the mistress of the house
suddenly arrives : her title-deeds as the origi-
nal occupant are inscribed for me in undenia-
ble characters on her thorax white with chalk.
Here is one of my travellers back.

Over waving corn, over fields all pink with
sainfoin, she has covered the two miles and a
half and here she is, back at the nest, after
foraging on the way, for the doughty creature
arrives with her abdomen yellow with pollen.
To come home again from the verge of the
horizon is wonderful in itself; to come home
with a well-filled pollen-brush is superlative
economy. A journey, even a forced journey,
always becomes a foraging expedition.

She finds the stranger in the nest.

''What's this? I'll teach you!"

And the owner falls furiously upon the in-
truder, who possibly was meaning no harm.
A hot chase in mid-air now takes place be-
tween the two masons. From time to time,
they hover almost without movement, face to
44

Experiments

face, with only a couple of inches separating
them, and here, doubtless measuring forces
with their eyes, they buzz insults at each
other. Then they go back and alight on the
nest in dispute, first one, then the other. I ex-
pect to see them come to blows, to make them
draw their stings. But my hopes are disap-
pointed: the duties of maternity speak in too
imperious a voice for them to risk their lives
and wipe out the insult in a mortal duel. The
whole thing is confined to hostile demonstra-
tions and a few insignificant cuffs.

Nevertheless, the real proprietress seems
to derive double courage and double strength
from the feeling that she is in her rights. She
takes up a permanent position on the nest and
receives the other, each time that she ventures
to approach, with an angry quiver of her
wings, an unmistakable sign of her righteous
indignation. The stranger, at last discour-
aged, retires from the field. Forthwith the
mason resumes her work, as actively as
though she had not just undergone the hard-
ships of a long journey.

One more word on these quarrels about
property. It is not unusual, when one Mason-
bee is away on an expedition, for another,
45

The Mason-bees

some homeless vagabond, to call at the nest,
take a fancy to it and set to work on it, some-
times at the same cell, sometimes at the next,
if there are several vacant, which is generally
the case in the old nests. The first occupier,
on her return, never fails to drive away the
intruder, who always ends by being turned
out, so keen and invincible Is the mistress'
sense of ownership. Reversing the savage
Prussian maxim, "Might is right," among the
Mason-bees right is might, for there is no
other explanation of the invariable retreat of
the usurper, whose strength is not a whit in-
ferior to that of the real owner. If she is
less bold, this is because she has not the tre-
mendous moral support of knowing herself in
the right, which makes itself respected, among
equals, even in the brute creation.

The second of my travellers does not reap-
pear, either on the day when the first arrived
or on the following days. I decide upon an-
other experiment, on this occasion with five
subjects. The starting-place is the same; and
the place of arrival, the distance, the time of
day, all remain unchanged. Of the five with
whom I experiment, I find three at their nests
next day; the two others are missing.
46

Experiments

It is therefore fully established that the
Mason-bee of the Walls, carried to a distance
of two and a half miles and released at a place
which she has certainly never seen before, is
able to return to the nest. But why do first
one out of two and then two out of five fail
to join their fellows ? What one can do cannot
another do ? Is there a difference in the faculty
that guides them over unknown ground?
Or is it not rather a difference in flying-
power? I remember that my Bees did not all
start off with the same vigour. Some were
hardly out of my fingers before they darted
furiously into the air, where I at once lost
sight of them, whereas the others came drop-
ping down a few yards away from me, after a
short flight. The latter, it seems certain,
must have suffered on the journey, perhaps
from the heat concentrated in the furnace of
my box. Or I may have hurt the articulation
of the wings in marking them, an operation
diflficult to perform when you are guarding
against stings. These are maimed, feeble
creatures, who will linger in the sainfoin-fields
close by, and not the powerful aviators re-
quired by the journey.

The experiment must be tried again, tak-
47

The Mason-bees

ing count only of the Bees who start off
straight from between my fingers with a clean,
vigorous flight. The waverers, the laggards
who stop almost at once on some bush shall
be left out of the reckoning. Moreover, I
will do my best to estimate the time taken in
returning to the nest. For an experiment of
this kind, I need plenty of subjects, as the
weak and the maimed, of whom there may be
many, are to be disregarded. The Mason-
bee of the Walls is unable to supply me with
the requisite number: there are not enough of
her; and I am anxious not to interfere too
much with the little Aygues-side colony for
whom I have other experiments in view. For-
tunately, I have at my own place, under the
eaves of a shed, a magnificent nest of Chali-
codoma sicula in full activity. I can draw to
whatever extent I please on the populous city.
The insect is small, less than half the size of
C. muraria, but no matter : it will deserve all
the more credit if it can traverse the two miles
and a half in store for it and find its way back
to the nest. I take forty Bees, isolating them,
as usual, in screws of paper.

In order to reach the nest, I place a ladder
against the wall : it will be used by my daugh-
4»

Experiments

ter Aglae and will enable her to mark the
exact moment of the return of the first Bee.
I set the clock on the mantelpiece and my
watch at the same time so that we may com-
pare the Instant of departure and of arrival.
Things being thus arranged, I carry off my
forty captives and go to the identical spot
where Chalicodoma tnuraria works, In the peb-
bly bed of the Aygues. The trip will have a
double object: to observe Reaumur's Mason
and to set the Sicilian Mason at liberty.
The latter, herefore, will also have two and
a half miles to travel home.

At last my prisoners are released, all of
them being first marked with a big white dot
in the middle of the thorax.

You do not come off scot-free when hand-
ling one after the other forty wrathful Bees,
who promptly unsheathe and brandish their
poisoned stings. The stab Is but too often
given before the mark is made. My smarting
fingers make movements of self-defence which
my will is not always able to control. I take
hold with greater precaution for myself than
for the insect; I sometimes squeeze harder
than I ought to If I am to spare my travellers.
To experiment so as to lift, If possible, a tiny
49

The Mason-bees

corner of the veil of truth is a fine and noble
thing, a mighty stimulant in the face of dan-
ger; but still one may be excused for display-
ing some impatience when it is a matter of
receiving forty stings in one's fingers at one
short sitting. If any man should reproach
me for being too careless with my thumbs, I
would suggest that he should have a try: he
can then judge for himself the pleasures of the
situation.

To cut a long story short, either through
the fatigue of the journey, or through my fin-
gers pressing too hard and perhaps injuring
some articulations, only twenty out of my
forty Bees start with a bold, vigorous flight.
The others, unable to keep their balance,
wander about on the nearest bit of grass or
remain on the osier-shoots on which I have
placed them, refusing to fly even when I tickle
them with a straw. These weaklings, these
cripples, these incapables injured by my fin-
gers must be struck off my list. Those who
started with an unhesitating flight number
about twenty. That is ample.

At the actual moment of departure, there
is nothing definite about the direction taken,
none of that straight flight to the nest which
50

Experiments

the Cercerls-wasps once showed me in similar
circumstances. As soon as they are liberated,
the Mason-bees flee as though scared, some in
one direction, some in exactly the opposite di-
rection. Nevertheless, as far as their impetu-
ous flight allows, I seem to perceive a quick
return on the part of those Bees who have
started flying towards a point opposite to
their homes ; and the majority appear to me to
be making for those blue distances where their
nest lies. I leave this question with certain
doubts which are inevitable in the case of in-
sects which I cannot follow with my eyes for
more than twenty yards.

Hitherto, the operation has been favoured
by calm weather; but now things become com-
plicated. The heat is stifling and the sky
becomes stormy. A stiff breeze springs up,
blowing from the south, the very direction
which my Bees must take to return to the nest.
Can they overcome this opposing current and
cleave the aerial torrent with their wings?
If they try, they will have to fly close to the
ground, as I now see the Bees do who con-
tinue their foraging; but soaring to lofty
regions, whence they can obtain a clear view
of the country, is, so it seems to me, pro-
Si

The Mason-bees

hibited. I am therefore very apprehensive as
to the success of my experiment when I return
to Orange, after first trying to steal some
fresh secret from the Aygues Mason-bee of
the Pebbles.

I have scarcely reached the house before
Aglae greets me, her cheeks flushed with ex-
citement:

"Two !" she cries. "Two arrived at twenty
minutes to three, with a load of pollen under
their bellies!"

A friend of mine had appeared upon the
scene, a grave man of the law, who on hearing
what was happening, had neglected code and
stamped paper and insisted upon also being
present at the arrival of my carrier-pigeons.
The result interested him more than his case
about a party-wall. Under a tropical sun, in
a furnace heat reflected from the wall of the
shed, every five minutes he climbed the ladder
bare-headed, with no other protection against
sunstroke than his thatch of thick, grey locks.
Instead of the one observer whom I had
posted, I found two good pairs of eyes watch-
ing the Bees' return.

I had released my Insects at about two
o'clock; and the first arrivals returned to the
52

Experiments

nest at twenty minutes to three. They had
therefore taken less than three-quarters of an
hour to cover the two miles and a half, a
very striking result, especially when we re-
member that the Bees did some foraging on
the road, as was proved by their bellies' yel-
low pollen, and that, on the other hand, the
travellers' flight must have been hindered by
the wind blowing against them. Three more
came home before my eyes, each with her
load of pollen, an outward and visible sign of
the work done on the journey. As It was
growing late, our observations had to cease.
When the sun goes down, the Mason-bees
leave the nest and take refuge somewhere or
other, perhaps under the tiles of the roofs, or
in little corners of the walls. I could not
reckon on the arrival of the others before
work was resumed, In the full sunshine.

Next day, when the sun recalled the scat-
tered workers to the nest, I took a fresh cen-
sus of Bees with a white spot on the thorax.
My success exceeded all my hopes : I counted
fifteen, fifteen of the transported prisoners of
the day before, storing their cells or building
as though nothing out of the way had hap-
pened. The weather had become more and
53

The Mason-bees

more threatening; and now the storm burst
and was followed by a succession of rainy
days which prevented me from continuing.

The experiment suffices as it stands. Of
some twenty Bees who had seemed fit to make
the long journey when I released them, fifteen
at least had returned: two within the first
hour, three in the course of the evening and
the rest next morning. They had returned in
spite of having the wind against them and —
a graver difficulty still — in spite of being un-
acquainted with the locality to which I had
transported them. There is, in fact, no doubt
that they were setting eyes for the first time
on those osier-beds of the Aygues which I had
selected as the starting-point. Never would
they have travelled so far afield of their own
accord, for everything that they want for
building and victualling under the roof of my
shed is within easy reach. The path at the
foot of the wall supplies the mortar; the
flowery meadows surrounding my house fur-
nish nectar and pollen. Economical of their
time as they are, they do not go flying two
miles and a half in search of what abounds
at a few yards from the nest. Besides, I see
them daily taking their building-materials
54

Experiments

from the path and gathering their harvest on
the wild flowers, especially on the meadow
sage. To all appearance, their expeditions do
not cover more than a radius of a hundred
yards or so. Then how did my exiles return?
What guided them? It was certainly not
memory, but some special faculty which we
must content ourselves with recognizing by its
astonishing effects without pretending to ex-
plain it, so greatly does it transcend our own
psychology.

CHAPTER III

EXCHANGING THE NESTS

LET US continue our series of tests with
the Mason-bee of the Walls. Thanks to
its position on a pebble which we can move at
will, the nest of this Bee lends itself to most
interesting experiments. Here is the first: I
shift a nest from its place, that is to say, I
carry the pebble which serves as its support
to a spot two yards away. As the edifice and
its base form but one, the removal is per-
formed without the smallest disturbance of the
cells. I lay the boulder in an exposed place
where it is well in view, as it was on its
original site. The Bee returning from her
harvest cannot fail to see it.

In a few minutes, the owner arrives and
goes straight to where the nest stood. She
hovers gracefully over the vacant site, ex-
amines and alights upon the exact spot where
the stone used to lie. Here she walks about
for a long time, making persistent searches;
then the insect takes wing and flies away to
56

Exchanging the Nests

some distance. Her absence is of short dura-
tion. Here she is back again. The search is
resumed, walking and flying, and always on
the site which the nest occupied at first. A
fresh fit of exasperation, that is to say, an
abrupt flight across the osier-bed, is followed
by. a fresh return and a renewal of the vain
search, always upon the mark left by the
shifted pebble. These sudden departures,
these prompt returns, these persevering in-
spections of the deserted spot go on for a long
time, a very long time, before the mason is
convinced that her nest is gone. She has cert-
ainly seen it, has seen it over and over again
in its new position, for sometimes she has
flown only a few inches above it; but she takes
no notice of it. To her, it is not her nest, but
the property of another Bee.

Often the experiment ends without so much
as a single visit to the boulder which I have
moved two or three yards away: the Bee goes
off and does not return. If the distance be
less, a yard for instance, the mason sooner or
later alights on the stone which supports her
abode. She inspects the cell which she was
building or provisioning a little while before,
repeatedly dips her head into it, examines the
57

The Mason-bees

surface of the pebble step by step and, after
long hesitations, goes and resumes her search
on the site where the home ought to be. The
nest that is no longer in its natural place is
definitely abandoned, even though it be but a
yard away from the original spot. Vainly
does the Bee settle on it time after time: she
cannot recognize it as hers. I was convinced
of this on finding it, several days after the
experiment, in just the same condition as when
I moved it. The open cell half-filled with
honey was still open and was surrendering its
contents to the pillaging Ants; the cell that
was building had remained unfinished, with
not a single layer added to it. The Bee,
obviously, may have returned to it; but she
had not resumed work upon it. The trans-
planted dweUing was abandoned for good and
all.

I will not deduce the strange paradox that
the Mason-bee, though capable of finding her
nest from the verge of the horizon, is in-
capable of finding it at a yard's distance: I
interpret the occurrence as meaning something
quite different. The proper inference appears
to me to be this : the Bee retains a rooted im-
pression of the site occupied by the nest and
S8

Exchanging the Nests

returns to it with unwearying persistence
even when the nest Is gone. But she has only
a very vague notion of the nest Itself. She
does not recognize the masonry which she her-
self has erected and kneaded with her saliva;
she does not know the pollen-paste which she
herself has stored. In vain she inspects her
cell, her own handiwork; she abandons It, re-
fusing to acknowledge It as hers, once the spot
whereon the pebble rests Is changed.

Insect memory, it must be confessed, is a
strange one, displaying such lucidity in Its gen-
eral acquaintance with locality and such limi-
tations in its knowledge of the dwelling. I
[feel inclined to call it topographical instinct:
it grasps the map of the country and not the
beloved nest, the home itself. The Bembex-
wasps^ have already led us to a like conclusion.
iWhen the nest is laid open, these Wasps be-
come wholly indifferent to the family, to the
grub writhing in agony in the sun. They do
not recognize it. What they do recognize,
what they seek and find with marvellous pre-
cision is the site of the entrance-door of which
nothing at all is left, not even the threshold.

iCf. Insect Life: chaps, xvi. to xtx. — Translator's Note.
59

The Mason-bees

If any doubts remained as to the incapacity
of the Mason-bee of the Walls to know her
nest other than by the place which the pebble
occupies on the ground, here is something to
remove them : for the nest of one Mason-bee,
I substitute that of another, resembling it as
closely as possible in respect to both masonry
and storage. This exchange and those of
which I shall speak presently are of course
made in the owner's absence. The Bee set-
tles without hesitation in this nest which is
not here, but which stands where the other
did. If she was building, I offer her a cell in
process of building. She continues the ma-
sonry with the same care and the same zeal as
if the work already done were her own work.
If she was fetching honey and pollen, I offer
her a partly-provisioned cell. She continues
her journeys, with honey in her crop and
pollen under her belly, to finish filling an-
other's warehouse. The Bee, therefore, does
not suspect the exchange; she does not
distinguish between what is her property and
what is not; she imagines that she is still work-
ing at the cell which is really hers.

After leaving her for a certain time in pos-
session of the strange nest, I give her back
60

Exchanging the Nests

her own. This fresh change passes unper-
ceived by the Bee : the work is continued In
the cell restored to her at the point which it
had reached in the substituted cell. I once
more replace it by the strange nest; and again
the insect persists in continuing its labour.
By thus constantly interchanging the strange
nest and the proper nest, without altering the
actual site, I thoroughly convinced myself of
the Bee's inability to discriminate between
what is her work and what Is not. Whether
the cell belong to her or to another, she
labours at it with equal zest, so long as the
basis of the edifice, the pebble, continues to
occupy its original position.

The experirrient receives an added interest
If we employ two neighbouring nests the work
on which Is about equally advanced. I move
each to where the other stood. They are not
much more than thirty Inches apart. In spite
of their being so near to each other that It Is
quite possible for the insects to see both homes
at once and to choose between them, each Bee,
on arriving, settles Immediately on the sub-
stituted nest and continues her work there.
Change the two nests as often as you please
and you shall see the two Mason-bees keep
6i

The Mason-bees

to the site which they selected and labour in
turn now at their own cell and now at the
other's.

One might think that the cause of this con-
fusion lies in a close resemblance between the
two nests, for at the start, little expecting the
results which I was to obtain, I used to choose
the nests which I interchanged as much alike
as possible, for fear of disheartening the
Bees. I need not have taken this precaution :
I was giving the insect credit for a perspicacity
■which it does not possess. Indeed, I now take
two nests which are extremely unlike each
other, the only point of resemblance being
that, in each case, the toiler finds a cell in
which she can continue the work which she
is actually doing. The first is an old nest
whose dome is perforated with eight holes,
the apertures of the cells of the previous gen-
eration. One of these cells has been restored
and the Bee is busy storing it. The second is
a nest of recent construction, which has not
received its mortar dome and consists of a
single cell with its stucco covering. Here,
too, the insect is busy hoarding pollen-paste.
No two nests could present greater differ-
ences : one with its eight empty chambers and
62

Exchanging the Nests

its spreading clay dome; the other with Its
single bare cell, at most the size of an acorn.
Well, the two Mason-bees do not hesitate
long in front of these exchanged nests, not
three feet away from each other. Each makes
for the site of her late home. One, the original
owner of the old nest, finds nothing but a
solitary cell. She rapidly inspects the pebble
and, without further formalities, first plunges
her head into the strange cell, to disgorge
honey, and then her abdomen, to deposit
pollen. And this is not an action due to the
imperative need of ridding herself as quickly
as possible, no matter where, of an irksome
load, for the Bee flies off and soon comes back
again with a fresh supply of provender, which
she stores away carefully. This carrying of
provisions to another's larder is repeated as
often as I permit it. The other Bee, finding
instead of her one cell a roomy structure con-
sisting of eight apartments, is at first not a
little embarrassed. Which of the eight cells
is the right one? In which is the heap of
paste on which she had begun ? The Bee there-
fore visits the chambers one by one, dives
right down to the bottom and ends by finding
what she seeks, that is to say, what was in
63

The Mason-bees

her nest when she started on her last jour-
ney, the nucleus of a store of food. Thence-
forward she behaves like her neighbour and
goes on carrying honey and pollen to the
warehouse which is not of her making.

Restore the nests to their original places,
exchange them yet once again and both Bees,
after a short hesitation which the great dif-
ference between the two nests is enough to
explain, will pursue the work in the cell of her
own making and in the strange cell alternately.
At last the egg is laid and the sanctuary
closed, no matter what nest happens to be
occupied at the moment when the provision-
ing reaches completion. These incidents are
sufficient to show why I hesitate to give the
name of memory to the singular faculty that
brings the insect back to her nest with such
unerring precision and yet does not allow her
to distinguish her work from some one else's,
however great the difference may be.

We will now experiment with Chalicodoma
muraria from another psychological point of
view. Here is a Mason-bee building; she is
at work on the first course of her cell. I
give her in exchange a cell not only finished
as a structure, but also filled nearly to the top
64

Exchanging the Nests

with honey. I have just stolen it from its
owner, who would not have been long before
laying her egg in it. What will the mason
do in the presence of this munificent gift,
which saves her the trouble of building and
harvesting? She will leave the mortar, no
doubt, finish storing the Bee-bread, lay her
egg and seal up. A mistake, an utter mis-
take: our logic is not the logic of the in-
sect, which obeys an inevitable, unconscious
prompting. It has no choice as to what it
shall do; it cannot discriminate between what
is and what is not advisable; it glides, as it
were, down an irresistible slope prepared be-
forehand to bring it to a definite end. This
is what the facts that still remain to be stated
proclaim with no uncertain voice.

The Bee who was building and to whom I
offer a cell ready-built and full of honey does
not lay aside her mortar for that. She was
doing Mason's work; and, once on that tack,
guided by the unconscious impulse, she has to
keep masoning, even though her labour be
useless, superfluous and opposed to her in-
terests. The cell which I give her is cer-
tainly perfect, looked upon as a building, in
the opinion of the master-builder herself, since
65

The Mason-bees

the Bee from whom I took It was completing
the provision of honey. To touch It up, es-
pecially to add to It is useless and, what is
more, absurd. No matter: the Bee who was
masoning will mason. On the aperture of the
honey-store she lays a first course of mortar,
followed by another and yet another, until at
last the cell is a third taller than the regulation
height. The masonry-task Is now done, not
as perfectly, it is true, as if the Bee had gone
on with the cell whose foundations she was
laying at the moment when I exchanged the
nests, but still to an extent which Is more
than enough to prove the irresistible Impulse
which the builder obeys. Next comes the
victualling, which is also cut short, lest the
honey-store swelled by the joint contributions
of the two Bees should overflow. Thus the
Mason-bee who Is beginning to build and to
whom we give a complete cell, a cell filled
with honey, makes no change in the order of
her work : she, builds first and then victuals.
Only she shortens her work, her Instinct warn-
ing her that the height of the cell and the
quantity of honey are beginning to assume
extravagant proportions.

The converse Is equally conclusive. To a
66

Exchanging the Nests

Mason-bee engaged in victualling I give a nest
with a cell only just begun and not at all fit
to receive the paste. This cell, with its last
course still wet with its builder's saliva, may
or may not be accompanied by other cells
recently closed up, each with its honey and its
egg. The Bee, finding this in the place of her
half-filled honey-store, is greatly perplexed
what to do when she comes with her harvest
to this unfinished, shallow cup, in which there
is no place to put the honey. She inspects it,
measures it with her eyes, tries it with her
antennae and recognizes its insufficient capacity.
She hesitates for a long time, goes away,
comes back, flies away again and soon returns,
eager to deposit her treasure. The Insect's
embarrassment is most evident; and I cannot
help saying. Inwardly:

"Get some mortar, get some mortar and
finish making the warehouse. It will only
take you a few moments; and you will have a
cupboard of the right depth,"

The Bee thinks differently: she was storing
her cell and she must go on storing, come
what may. Never will she bring herself to
lay aside the pollen-brush for the trowel;
never will she suspend the foraging which is
67

The Mason-bees

occupying her at this moment to begin the
work of construction which is not yet due.
She will rather go in search of a strange cell,
in the desired condition, and slip in there to
deposit her honey, at the risk of meeting with
a warm reception from the irate owner. She
goes off, in fact, to try her luck. I wish her
success, being myself the cause of this desper-
ate act. My curiosity has turned an honest
worker into a robber.

Things may take a still more serious turn,
so invincible, so imperious is the desire to have
the booty stored in a safe place without delay.
The uncompleted cell which the Bee refuses
to accept instead of her own finished ware-
house, half-filled with honey, is often, as I
said, accompanied by other cells, not long
closed, each containing its Bee-bread and its
egg. In this case, I have sometimes, though
not always, witnessed the following: when
once the Bee realizes the shortcomings of the
unfinished nest, she begins to gnaw the clay
lid closing one of the adjoining cells. She
softens a part of the mortar cover with saliva
and patiently, atom by atom, digs through the
hard wall. It is very slow work. A good
half-hour elapses before the tiny cavity is large
68

Exchanging the Nests

enough to admit a pin's head. I wait longer
still. Then I lose patience; and, fully con-
vinced that the Bee is trying to open the store-
room, I decide to help her to shorten the
work. I force the lid with the point of my
knife. The upper part of the cell comes
away with It, leaving the edges badly broken.
In my awkwardness, I have turned an elegant
vase into a wretched cracked pot.

I was right in my conjecture: the Bee's in-
tention was to break open the door. Straight
away, without heeding the raggedness of the
orifice, she settles down in the cell which I
have opened for her. Time after time, she
fetches honey and pollen, though the larder
is already fully stocked. Lastly, she lays her
egg in this cell which already contains an egg
that is not hers, having done which she closes
the broken aperture to the best of her ability.
So this purveyor had neither the knowledge
nor the power to bow to the inevitable. I had
made it impossible for her to go on with her
purveying, unless she first completed the un-
finished cell substituted for her own. But she
did not retreat before that impossible task.
She accomplished her work, but in the absurd-
est way: by injuriously trespassing upon an-
69

The Mason-bees

other's property, by continuing to store pro-
visions in a cupboard already full to overflow-
ing, by laying her egg in a cell in which the
real owner had already laid and lastly by
hurriedly closing an orifice that called for seri-
ous repairs. What better proof could be
wished of the irresistible propensity which the
insect obeys?

Lastly, there are certain swift and consecu-
tive actions so closely Interlinked that the
performance of the second demands a previ-
ous repetition of the first, even when this ac-
tion has become useless. I have already
described how the Yellow-winged Sphex^ per-
sists In descending Into her burrow alone,
after depositing at Its edge the Cricket whom
I mahclously at once remove. Her re-
peated discomfitures do not make her abandon
the preliminary Inspection of the home, an
inspection which becomes quite useless when
renewed for the tenth or twentieth time. The
Mason-bee of the Walls shows us, under an-
other form, a similar repetition of an act
which is useless in itself, but which is the com-
pulsory preface to the act that follows. When

^Cf. Insect Life: chaps, vi to ix. — Translator's Note.
?0

Exchanging the Nests

arriving with her provisions, the Bee performs
a twofold operation of storing. First, she
dives head foremost into the cell, to disgorge
the contents of her crop; next, she comes out
and at once goes in again backwards, to brush
her abdomen and rub off the load of pollen.
At the moment when the insect is about to
enter the cell tail first, I push her aside gently
with a straw. The second act is thus pre-
vented. The Bee now begins the whole per-
formance over again, that Is to say, she once
more dives head first to the bottom of the
cell, though she has nothing left to disgorge,
as her crop has just been emptied. When this
is done, it is the belly's turn. I instantly push
her aside again. The insect repeats its pro-
ceedings, still entering head first; I also repeat
my touch of the straw. And this can go on
as long as the observer pleases. Pushed aside
at the moment when she Is about to Insert her
abdomen into the cell, the Bee goes back to
the opening and persists in going down head
first to begin with. Sometimes, she descends
to the bottom, sometimes only half-way, some-
times again she only pretends to descend, just
bending her head into the aperture; but,
whether completed or not, this action, for
71

The Mason-bees

which there is no longer any motive, since
the honey has already been disgorged, in-
variably precedes the entrance backwards to
deposit the pollen. It is almost the movement
of a machine whose works are only set going
when the driving-wheel begins to revolve.

7a

X

CHAPTER IV

MORE ENQUIRIES INTO MASON-BEES

THIS chapter and the next were to have
taken the form of a letter addressed to
Charles Darwin, the illustrious naturalist, who
now lies buried beside Newton in Westmin-
ster Abbey. It was my task to report to him
the result of some experiments which he had
suggested to me in the course of our corre-
spondence: a very pleasant task, for, though
facts, as I see them, disincline me to accept
his theories, I have none the less the deepest
veneration for his noble character and his sci-
entific honesty. I was drafting my letter when
the sad news reached me : Darwin was dead;
after searching the mighty question of origins,
he was now grappling with the last and dark-
est problem of the hereafter.^ I therefore
abandon the epistolary form, which would be
unwarranted in view of that grave at West-
minster. A free and impersonal statement

'Darwin died on the 19th of April, 1882, at Down, in
Kent — Translator's Note.

7^

The Mason-bees

shall set forth what I intended to relate in a
more academic manner.

One thing, above all, had struck the Eng-
lish scientist on reading the first volume of
my Souve?iirs entomologiqiies, namely, the
Mason-bees' faculty of knowing the way back
to their nests after being carried to great dis-
tances from home. What sort of compass do
they employ on their return journeys? What
sense guides them? The profound observer
thereupon spoke of an experiment which he
had always longed to make with pigeons and
which he had always neglected making, ab-
sorbed as he was by other interests. This ex-
periment, he thought, I might attempt with
my Bees. Substitute the insect for the bird;
and the problem remained the same. I quote
from his letter the passage referring to the
trial which he wished made:

"Allow me to make a suggestion In rela-
tion to your wonderful account of insects find-
ing their way home. I formerly wished to
try it with pigeons; namely, to carry the in-
sects in their paper cornets about a hundred
paces in the opposite direction to that which
you intended ultimately to carry them, but
74

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

before turning round to return, to put the In-
sects in a circular box with an axle which could
be made to revolve very rapidly first In
one direction and then in another, so as to
destroy for a time all sense of direction in the
insects, I have sometimes Imagined that ani-
mals may feel In which direction they were at
the first start carried."

This method of experimenting seemed to
me very ingeniously conceived. Before going
wect, I walk eastwards. In the darkness of
their paper-bags, the mere fact that I am mov-
ing them gives my prisoners a sense of the di-
rection in which I am taking them. If nothing
happened to disturb this first Impression,
the insect would be guided by It In returning.
This would explain the homing of my Mason-
bees carried to a distance of two or three miles
amid strange surroundings. But, when the
insects have been sufficiently Impressed by
their conveyance to the east, there comes the
rapid twirl, first this way round, then that.
Bewildered by all these revolutions first in one
direction and then in another, the insect does
not know that I have turned round and re-
mains under Its original Impression. I am

75

The Mason-bees

now taking it to the west, when it believes it-
self to be still travelling towards the east.
Under the influence of this impression, the in-
sect is bound to lose its bearings. When set
free, it will fly in the opposite direction to its
home, which it will never find again.

This result seemed to me the more probable
inasmuch as the statements of the country-
folk around me were all of a nature to con-
firm my hopes. Favier,^ the very man for
this sort of information, was the first to put
me on the track. He told me that, when peo-
ple want to move a Cat from one farm to
another at some distance, they place the ani-
mal in a bag, which they twirl rapidly at the
moment of starting, thus preventing the ani-
mal from returning to the house which it has
quitted. Many others, besides Favier, de-
scribed the same practice to me. According
to them, this twirling round in a bag was an
infallible expedient: the bewildered Cat never
returned. I communicated what I had learnt
to England, I wrote to the sage of Down and
told him how the peasant had anticipated the
researches of science. Charles Darwin was

^The authors gardener and factotum. Cf. The Life of
the Fly: chap. iv. — Translator's Note.
76

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

amazed; so was I; and we both of us almost
reckoned on a success.

These preliminaries took place In the win-
ter; I had plenty of time to prepare for tdie
experiment which was to be made in the fol-
lowing May.

"Favier," I said, one day, to my assistant,
"I shall want some of those nests. Go and
ask our next-door neighbour's leave and climb
to the roof of his shed, with some new tiles
and some mortar, which you can fetch from
the builder's. Take a dozen tiles from the
roof, those with the biggest nests on them, and
put the new ones In their place."

Things were done accordingly. My neigh-
bour assented with a good grace to the ex-
change of tiles, for he himself is obliged, from
time to time, to demolish the work of the
Mason-bee, unless he would risk seeing his
roof fall in sooner or later. I was merely
forestalling a repair which became more
urgent every year. That same evening, I was
In possession of twelve magnificent rectangu-
lar blocks of nest, each lying on the convex
surface of a tile, that is to say, on the surface
looking towards the Inside of the shed. I had
the curiosity to weigh the largest : It turned

The Mason-bees

the scale at thirty-five pounds. Now the roof
whence it came was covered with similar
masses, adjoining one another, over a stretch
of some seventy tiles. Reckoning only half
the weight, so as to strike an average between
the largest and the smallest lumps, we find
the total weight of the Bee's masonry to
amount to three-quarters of a ton. And,
even so, people tell me that they have seen
this beaten elsewhere. Leave the Mason-bee
to her own devices, in the spot that suits her;
allow the work of many generations to accu-
mulate, and, one fine day, the roof will break
down under the extra burden. Let the nests
grow old ; let them fall to pieces when the
damp gets into them; and you will have
chunks tumbling on your head big enough to
crack your skull. There you see the work of
a very little-known insect.^

*The insect is so little known that I made a serious
mistake when treating of it in the first volume of these
Sowvenirs. Under my erroneous denomination of Chali-
codoma sicula are really comprised two species, one
building its nests in our dwellings and particularly under
the tiles of outhouses, the other building its nests on the
branches of shrubs. The first species has received vari-
ous names, which are, in order of priority: Chalicodoma
fyrenaica, Ler. {Megacliile) ; Chalicodoma pyrrhopeza,
Gerstacker; Chalicodoma rufitarsis, Giraud. It is a pity
78

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

These treasures were insufficient, not in re-
gard to quantity, but in regard to quality, for
the main object which I had in view. They
came from the nearest house, separated from
mine by a little field planted with corn and
olive-trees. I had reason to fear that the in-
sects issuing from those nests might be heredi-
tarily influenced by their ancestors, who had
lived in the shed for many a long year. The
Bee, when carried to a distance, would per-
haps come back, guided by the inveterate
family habit; she would find the shed of her
lineal predecessors and thence, without diffi-
culty, reach her nest. As it Is the fashion
nowadays to assign a prominent part to
these hereditary influences, I must eliminate
them from my experiments. I want strange

that the name occupying the first place should lend itself
to misconception. I hesitate to apply the epithet of
Pyrenean to an insect which is much less common in the
Pyrenees than in my own district. I shall call it the
Chalicodoma, or Mason-bee, of the Sheds. There is no
objection to the use of this name in a book where the
reader prefers lucidity to the tyranny of systematic ento-
mology. The second species, that which builds its nests on
the branches, is Chalicodoma rufescens, J. Perez. For a
like reason, I shall call it the Chalicodoma of the Shrubs.
I owe these corrections to the kindness of the erudite
Professor Jean Perez, of Bordeaux, who is so well-versed
in the lore of Wasps and Bees. — Author's Note.

79

rhe Mason-bees

Bees, brought from afar, whose return to the
place of their birth can in no way assist their
return to the nest transplanted to another site.
Favier took the business in hand. He had
discovered on the banks of the Aygues, at
some miles from the village, a deserted hut,
where the Mason-bees had established them-
selves in a numerous colony. He proposed
to take the wheel-barrow, in which to move
the blocks of cells; but I objected: the jolt-
ing of the vehicle over the rough paths might
jeopardize the contents of the cells. A basket
carried on the shoulder was deemed safer.
Favier took a man to help him and set out.
The expedition provided me with four well-
stocked tiles. It was all that the two men
were able to carry between them; and even
then I had to stand treat on their arrival : they
were utterly exhausted. Le Vaillant tells us
of a nest of Republicans^ with which he
loaded a wagon drawn by two oxen. My
Mason-bee vies with the South-African bird :
a yoke of oxen would not have been too many

iPrangois Le Vaillant (1753-1824), a distinguished
French naturalist, born in Dutch Guiana. "Republicans"
are Social Weaver-birds. — Translator's Note.

80

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

to move the whole of that nest from the banks
of the Aygues.

The next thing is to place my tiles. I want
to have them under my eyes, in a position
where I can watch them easily and save my-
self the worries of earlier days: going up and
down ladders, standing for hours at a stretch
on a narrow rung that hurt the soles of my
feet and risking sunstroke up against a scorch-
ing wall. Moreover, it is necessary that my
guests should feel almost as much at home
with me as where they come from. I must
make life pleasant for them, if I would have
them grow attached to the new- dwelling.

Under the leads of my house is a wide
arch, the sides of which get the sun, while
the back remains in the shade. There is some-
thing for everybody: the shade for me, the
sunlight for my boarders. We fasten a stout
hook to each tile and hang it on the wall, on
a level with our eyes. Half my nests are on
the right, half on the left. The general effect
is rather original. Any one walking in and
seeing my show for the first time begins by
taking it for a display of smoked provisions,
gammons of some outlandish bacon curing in
the sun. On perceiving his mistake, he falls
8i

The Mason-bees

into raptures at these new hives of mine. The
news spreads through the village and more
than one pokes fun at it. They look upon
me as a keeper of hybrid Bees:

"I wonder what he's going to make out of
that!" say they.

My hives are in full swing before the end
of April. When the work is at its height, the
swarm becomes a little eddying, buzzing
cloud. The arch is a much-frequented
passage: it leads to a store-room for various
household provisions. The members of my
family bully me at first for establishing this
dangerous commonwealth within the precincts
of our home. They dare not go to fetch
things: they would have to pass through a
swarm of Bees; and then . . . look out for
stings ! There is nothing for it but to prove,
once and for all, that the danger does not
exist, that mine is a most peaceable Bee, in-
capable of stinging so long as she is not
startled. I bring my face close to one of the
clay nests, so as almost to touch it, while it
is black with masons at work; I let my fingers
wander through the ranks, I put a few Bees
on my hand, 1 stand in the thick of the whirl-
ing crowd and never a prick do I receive. I
82

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

have long known their peaceful character.
Time was when I used to share the common
fears, when I hesitated before venturing into
a swarm of Anthophorae or Chalicodomae;
nowadays, I have quite got over those terrors.
If you do not tease the insect, the thought of
hurting you will never occur to it. At the
worst, a single specimen, prompted by curi'
osity rather than anger, will come and hover
in front of your face, examining you with
some persistency, but employing a buzz as her
only threat. Let her be : her scrutiny is quite
friendly.

After a few demonstrations, my household
were reassured: all, old and young, moved in
and out of the arch as though there were no-
thing unusual about it. My Bees, far from re-
maining an object of dread, became an object
of diversion ; every one took pleasure in watch-
ing the progress of their ingenious work. I
was careful not to divulge the secret to
strangers. If any one, coming on business,
passed outside the arch while I was stand-
ing before the hanging nests, some such brief
dialogue as the following would take place:

"So they know you ; that's why they don't
sting you?"

83

The Mason-bees

"They certainly know me."

"And me?"

"Oh, you : that's another matter !"

Whereupon the intruder would keep at a
respectful distance, which was what I wanted.

It is time that we thought of experiment-
ing. The Mason-bees intended for the jour-
ney must be marked with a sign whereby I
may know them. A solution of gum arabic,
thickened with a colouring-powder, red, blue
or some other shade, is the material which I
use to mark my travellers. The variety in
hue will save me from confusing the subjects
of my different experiments.

When making my former investigations, I
used to mark the Bees at the place where I
set them free. For this operation, the in-
sects had to be held in the fingers one after
the other; and I v/as thus exposed to frequent
stings, v/hich smarted all the more for being
constantly repeated. The consequence was
that I was not always quite able to control
my fingers and thumbs, to the great detriment
of my travellers ; for I could easily warp their
wing-joints and thus weaken their flight. It
was worth while improving the method of
operation, both in my own interest and in that

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

of the insect. I must mark the Bee, carry her
to a distance and release her, without taking
her in my fingers, without once touching her.
The experiment was bound to gain by these
nice precautions. I will describe the method
which I adopted.

The Bee is so much engrossed in her work
when she buries her abdomen in the cell and
rids herself of her load of pollen, or when
she is building, that it is easy, at such times,
without alarming her, to mark the upper side
of the thorax with a straw dipped in the col-
oured glue. The insect is not disturbed by
that slight touch. It flies off; it returns laden
with mortar or pollen. You allow these trips
to be repeated until the mark on the thorax
is quite dry, which soon happens in the hot
sun necessary to the Bee's labours. The next
thing is to catch her and Imprison her in a
paper bag, still without touching her. No-
thing could be easier. You place a small test-
tube over the Bee engrossed in her work; the
insect, on leaving, rushes into it and is thence
transferred to the paper bag, which is forth-
with closed and placed in the tin box that will
serve as a conveyance for the whole party.
When releasing the Bees, all you have to do is
85

The Mason-bees

to open the bags. The whole performance
is thus effected without once giving that di-
stressing squeeze of the fingers.

Another question remains to be solved be-
fore we go further. What time-limit shall
I allow for this census of the Bees that return
to the nest? Let me explain what I mean.
The dot which I have made in the middle of
the thorax with a touch of my sticky straw
Is not very permanent : it merely adheres to
the hairs. At the same time, it would have
been no more lasting if I had held the insect
in my fingers. Now the Bee often brushes her
back: she dusts it each time she leaves the
galleries; besides, she is always rubbing her
coat against the walls of the cell, which she
has to enter and to leave each time she brings
honey. A Mason-bee, so smartly dressed at
the start, at the end of her work is in rags;
her fur is all worn bare and as tattered as a
mechanic's overall.

Furthermore, in bad weather, the Mason-
bee of the Walls spends the days and nights
in one of the cells of her dome, suspended
head downwards. The Mason-bee of the
Sheds, as long as there are vacant galleries,
does very nearly the same : she takes shelter
86

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

in the galleries, but with her head at the en-
trance. But once those old habitations are
in use and the building of new cells begun, she
selects another retreat. In the harmas,^ as
I have said, are stone heaps, intended for
building the surrounding wall. This is where
my Chalicodomce pass the night. Piled up
promiscuously, both sexes together, they sleep
in numerous companies, in crevices between
two stones laid closely one on top of the other.
Some of these companies number as many as
a couple of hundred. The most common
dormitory is a narrow groove. Here they all
huddle, as far forward as possible, with their
backs in the groove. I see some lying flat on
their backs, like people asleep. Should bad
weather come on, should the sky cloud over,
should the north-wind whistle, they do not
stir out.

With all these things to take into consider-
ation, I cannot expect my dot on the Bee"'s
thorax to last any length of time. By day,
the constant brushing and the rubbing against
the partitions of the galleries soon wipe it off;

*The waste ground on which the author studies his in-
sects in the natural state. Cf. The Life of the Fly:
chap. i. — Translator's Note.
87

The Mason-bees

at night, things are worse still, in the narrow
sleeping-room where the Mason-bees take
refuge by the hundred. After a night spent
in the crevice between two stones, it is not ad-
visable to trust to the mark made yesterday.
Therefore, the counting of the number of
Bees that return to the nest must be taken
in hand at once; to-morrow would be too late.
And so, as it would be impossible for me to
recognize those of my subjects whose dots
had disappeared during the night, I will take
into account only those Bees who return on
the same day.

The question of the rotary machine re-
mains. Darwin advised me to use a circular
box with an axle and a handle. I have no-
thing of the kind in the house. It will be
simpler and quite as effective to employ the
method of the countryman who tries to lose
his Cat by swinging him in a bag. My in-
sects, each one placed by itself in a paper
cornet^ or screw, shall be placed in a tin box;
the screws of paper shall be wedged in so as

*A cornet is simply the old "sugar-bag," the funnel-
shaped paper bag so common on the continent and still
used occasionally by small grocers and tobacconists in
England. — Translator's Note.

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

to avoid collisions during the rotation; lastly,
the box shall be tied to a cord and I will whirl
the whole thing round like a sling. With this
contrivance, it will be quite easy to obtain
any rate of speed that I wish, any variety of
inverse movements that I consider likely to
make my captives lose their bearings. I can
whirl my sling first in one direction and then
in another, turn and turn about; I can slacken
or increase the pace; if I like, I can make it
describe figures of eight, combined with cir-
cles; if I spin on my heels at the same time, I
am able to make the process still more com-
plicated by compelling my sling to trace every
known curve. That is what I shall do.

On the 2d of May, 1880, I make a white
mark on the thorax of ten Mason-bees busied
with various tasks : some are exploring the
slabs of clay in order to select a site; others
are bricklaying; others are laying in stores.
When the mark is dry, I catch them and pack
them as I have described. I first carry them
a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction
to the one which I intend to take. A path
skirting my house favours this preliminary
manoeuvre ; I have every hope of being alone
when the time comes to make play with my
89

The Mason-bees

sling. There is a wayside cross at the end;
I stop at the foot of the cross. Here I swing
my Bees in every direction. Now, while I
am making the box describe inverse circles and
loops, while I am pirouetting on my heels to
achieve the various curves, up comes a woman
from the village and stares at me. Oh, how
she stares at me, what a look she gives me !
At the foot of the cross! Acting in such a
silly way! People talked about it. It was
sheer witchcraft. Had I not dug up a dead
body, only a few days before? Yes, I had
been to a prehistoric burial-place, I had taken
from it a pair of venerable, well-developed
tibias, a set of funerary vessels and a few
shoulders of horse, placed there as a viaticum
for the great journey. I had done this thing;
and people knew it. And now, to crown all,
the man of evil reputation is found at the
foot of a cross indulging in unhallowed antics.
No matter — and it shows no small courage
on my part — the gyrations are duly accom-
plished in the presence of this unexpected wit-
ness. Then I retrace my steps and walk west-
ward of Serignan. I take the least-frequented
paths, I cut across country so as, if possible, to
avoid a second meeting. It would be the last
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More Enquiries into Mason-bees

straw if I were seen opening my paper bags
and letting loose my insects! When half-
way, to make my experiment more decisive
still, I repeat the rotation, in as complicated
a fashion as before. I repeat it for the third
time at the spot chosen for the release.

I am at the end of a flint-strewn plain, with
here and there a scanty curtain of almond-
trees and holm-oaks. Walking at a good pace,
I have taken thirty minutes to cover the
ground in a straight line. The distance,
therefore, is, roughly, two miles. It is a fine
day, under a clear sky, with a very light
breeze blowing from the north. I sit down on
the ground, facing the south, so that the in-
sects may be free to take either the direction
of their nest or the opposite one. I let them
loose at a quarter past two. When the bags
are opened, the Bees, for the most part, circle
several times around me and then dart off
impetuously in the direction of Serignan, as
far as I can judge. It is not easy to watch
them, because they fly off suddenly, after go-
ing two or three times round my body, a
suspicious-looking object which they wish, ap-
parently, to reconnoitre before starting. A
quarter of an hour later, my eldest daughter,

■31

The Mason-bees

Antonia, who is on the look-out beside the
nests, sees the first traveller arrive. On my
return, in the course of the evening, two
others come back. Total: three of my
Masons home on the same day, out of ten
scattered abroad.

I resume the experiment next day. I mark
ten Mason-bees with red, which will enable
me to distinguish them from those who re-
turned on the day before and from those who
may still return with the white spot uneffaced.
The same precautions, the same rotations, the
same localities as on the first occasion; only,
I make no rotation on the way, confining my-
self to swinging my box round on leaving
and on arriving. The insects are released at
a quarter past eleven. I prefer the morning,
as this was the busiest time at the works. One
Bee was seen by Antonia to be back at the nest
by twenty minutes past eleven. Supposing her
to be the first let loose, it took her just five
minutes to cover the distance. But there Is
nothing to tell me that it is not another, in
which case she needed less. It is the fastest
speed that I have succeeded in noting. I my-
self am back at twelve and, within a short
time, catch three others. I see no more
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More Enquiries into Mason-bees

during the rest of the evening. Total: four
home, out of ten.

The 4th of May is a very bright, calm,
warm day, weather highly propitious for my
experiments. I take fifty Chalicodomse
marked with blue. The distance to be travel-
led remains the same. I make the first ro-
tation after carrying my insects a few hun-
dred steps in the direction opposite to that
which I finally take; in addition, three rota-
tions on the road; a fifth rotation at the place
where they are set free. If they do not lose
their bearings this time, It will not be for lack
of twisting and turning. I begin to open my
screws of paper at twenty minutes past nine.
It Is rather early, for which reason my Bees,
on recovering their liberty, remain for a mo-
ment undecided and lazy; but, after a short
sun-bath on a stone where I place them, they
take wing. I am sitting on the ground, facing
the south, with Serlgnan on my left and
Plolenc on my right. When the flight Is not
too swift to allow me to perceive the direction
taken, I see my released captives disappear
to my left. A few, but only a few, go south;
two or three go west, or to right of me. I do
not speak of the north, against which I act

93

The Mason-bees

as a screen. All told, the great majority take
the left, that Is to say, the direction of the
nest. The last is released at twenty minutes
to ten. One of the fifty travellers has lost
her mark in the paper bag. I deduct her from
the total, leaving forty-nine.

According to Antonia, who watches the
home-coming, the earliest arrivals appeared
at twenty-five minutes to ten, say fifteen min-
utes after the first was set free. By twelve
o'clock mid-day, there are eleven back; and,
by four o'clock In the evening, seventeen.
That ends the census. Total: seventeen, out
of forty-nine.

I resolved upon a fourth experiment, on
the 14th of May. The weather Is glorious,
with a light northerly breeze. I take twenty
Mason-bees marked in pink, at eight o'clock
In the morning. Rotations at the start, after
a preliminary backing In a direction opposite
to that which I intend to take; two rotations
on the road; a fourth on arriving. All those
whose flight I am able to follow with my eyes
turn to my left, that is to say, towards
Serlgnan. Yet I had taken care to leave the
choice free between the two opposite direc-
tions : In particular, I had sent away my Dog,
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More Enquiries into Mason-bees

who was on my right. To-day, the Bees do
not circle round me: some fly away at once;
the others, the greater number, feeling giddy
perhaps after the pitching of the journey and
the rolling of the sling, alight on the ground
a few yards away, seem to wait until they are
somewhat recovered and then fly off to the
left. I perceived this to be the general flight,
whenever I was able to observe at all. I was
back at a quarter to ten. Two Bees with pink
marks were there before me, of whom one
was engaged in building, with her pellet of
mortar In her mandibles. By one o'clock in
the afternoon there were seven arrivals; I
saw no more during the rest of the day.
Total: seven, out of twenty.

Let us be satisfied with this: the experi-
ment has been repeated often enough, but It
does not conclude as Darwin hoped, as I my-
self hoped, especially after what I have been
told about the Cat. In vain, adopting the
advice given, do I carry my insects, first
In the opposite direction to the place at
which I intend to release them; In vain,
when about to retrace my steps, do I
whirl my sling with every complication
In the way of whirls and twists that

95

The Mason-bees

I am able to imagine; in vain, thinking to
increase the difliculties, do I repeat the rota-
tion as often as five times over: at the start,
on the road, on arriving; it makes no differ-
ence: the Mason-bees return and the pro-
portion of returns on the same day fluctuates
between thirty and forty per cent. It goes
to my heart to abandon an idea suggested by
so famous a man of science and cherished all
the more readily inasmuch as I thought it
likely to provide a final solution. The facts
are there, more eloquent than any number of
ingenious views; and the problem remains as
mysterious as ever.

In the following year, 1881, I began experi-
menting again, but in a different way.
Hitherto, I had worked on the level. To re-
turn to the nest, my lost Bees had only to
cross slight obstacles, the hedges and spin-
neys of the tilled fields. To-day, I propose
to add to the difliculties of distance those of
the ground to be traversed. Discontinuing
all my backing- and whirling-tactics, things
which I recognize as useless, I think of re-
leasing my Chalicodomae in the thick of the
Serignan Woods. How will they escape from
that labyrinth, where, in the early days, I
96

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

needed a compass to find my way? More-
over, I shall have an assistant with me, a pair
of eyes younger than mine and better-fitted to
follow my insects' first flight. That immedi-
ate start in the direction of the nest has al-
ready been repeated very often and is begin-
ning to interest me more than the return it-
self. A pharmaceutical student, spending a
few days with his parents, shall be my eye-
witness. With him, I feel at ease; science and
he are no strangers.

The trip to the woods takes place on the
1 6th of May. The weather is hot and hints
at a coming storm. There is a perceptible
breeze from the south, but not enough to up-
set my travellers. Forty Mason-bees are
caught. To shorten the preparations, because
of the distance, I do not mark them while
they are on the nests; I shall mark them at
the starting-point, as I release them. It is
the old method, prolific of stings; but I prefer
it to-day, in order to save time. It takes me
an hour to reach the place. The distance,
therefore, allowing for windings, is about
three miles.

The site selected must permit me to recog-
nize the direction of the insects' first flight.
97

The Mason-bees

I choose a clearing in the middle of the copses.
All around is a great expanse of dense woods,
shutting out the horizon on every side; on
the south, in the direction of the nests, a cur-
tain of hills rises to a height of some three
hundred feet above the spot at which I stand.
The wind is not strong, but it is blowing in
the opposite direction to that which my in-
sects will have to take in order to reach their
home. I turn my back on Serignan, so that,
when leaving my fingers, the Bees, to return to
the nest, will be obliged to fly sideways, to
right and left of me; I mark the insects and
release them one by one. I begin operations
at twenty minutes past ten.

One-half of the Bees seem rather indolent,
flutter about for a while, drop to the ground,
appear to recover their spirits and then start
off. The other half show greater decision.
Although the insects have to fight against the
soft wind that is blowing from the south, they
make straight for the nest. All go south,
after describing a few circles, a few loops
around us. There is no exception in the case
of any of those whose departure we are able
to follow. The fact is noted by myself and
my colleague beyond dispute or doubt. My
98

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

Mason-bees head for the south as though
some compass told them which way the wind
was blowing.

I am back at twelve o'clock. None of tht
strays is at the nest; but, a few minutes later,
I catch two. At two o'clock, the number has
increased to nine. But now the sky clouds
over, the wind freshens and the storm is ap-
proaching. We can no longer rely on any
further arrivals. Total: nine, out of forty, or
twenty-two per cent.

The proportion is smaller than in the
former cases, when it varied between thirty
and forty per cent. Must we attribute this
result to the difficulties to be overcome? Can
the Mason-bees have lost their way in the
maze of the forest? It is safer not to give
an opinion : other causes intervened which
may have decreased the number of those who
rcturn'ed. I marked the insects at the starting-
place; I handled them; and I am not prepared
to say that they were all in the best of con-
dition on leaving my stung and smarting
fingers. Besides, the sky has become over-
cast, a storm is imminent. In the month of
May, so variable, so fickle, in my part of the
world, we can hardly ever count on a whole
99

The Mason-bees

day of fine weather. A splendid morning Is
swiftly followed by a fitful afternoon; and my
experiments with Mason-bees have often suf-
fered by these variations. All things con-
sidered, I am Inclined to think that the home-
ward journey across the forest and the mount-
ain Is effected just as readily as across the
corn-fields and the plain.

I have one last resource left whereby to
try and put my Bees out of their latitude. I
will first take them to a great distance; then,
describing a wide curve, I will return by an-
other road and release my captives when I
am near enough to the village, say, about two
miles. A conveyance Is necessary, this time.
My collaborator of the day in the woods of-
fers me the use of his gig. The two of us set
off, with fifteen Mason-bees, along the road
to Orange, until we come to the viaduct.
Here, on the right, is the straight ribbon of
the old Roman road, the Via Domitia. We
take it, driving north towards the Uchaux
Mountains, the classic home of superb Turo-
nlan fossils. We next turn back towards
Serlgnan, by the Piolenc Road. A halt is
made by the stretch of country known as Font-
Claire, the distance from which to the village

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

is about one mile and five furlongs. The
reader can easily follow my route on the
ordnance-survey map; and he will see that the
loop described measures not far short of five
miles and a half.

At the same time, Favier came and joined
me at Font-Claire, by the direct road, the one
that runs through Piolenc. He brought with
him fifteen Mason-bees, intended for purposes
of comparison with mine. I am, therefore, in
possession of two sets of insects. Fifteen,
marked in pink, have taken the five-mile bend;
fifteen, marked in blue, have come by the
straight road, the shortest road for returning
to the nest. The weather is warm, exceedingly
bright and very calm; I could not hope for a
better day for my experiment. The insects
are given their freedom at mid-day.

At five o'clock, the arrivals number seven
of the pink Mason-bees, whom I thought that
I had bewildered by a long and circuitous
drive, and six of the blue Mason-bees, who
came to Font-Claire by the direct route. The
two proportions, forty-six and forty per cent.,
are almost equal; and the slight excess in fa-
vour of the insects that went the roundabout
way Is evidently an accidental result which we

lOI

The Mason-bees

need not take Into consideration. The bend
described cannot have helped them to find
their way home ; but it has also certainly not
hampered them.

There is no need of further proof. The in-
tricate movements of a rotation such as I have
described; the obstacle of hills and woods;
the pitfalls of a road which moves on, moves
back and returns after making a wide circuit:
none of these is able to disconcert the Chali-
codomse or prevent them from going back
to the nest.

I had written to Charles Darwin telling
him of my first, negative results, those ob-
tained by swinging the Bees round in a box.
He expected a success and was much surprised
at the failure. Had he had time to experi-
ment with his pigeons, they would have be-
haved just like my Bees; the preliminary
twirling .would not have affected them. The
problem called for another method; and what
he proposed was this:

"To place the Insect within an Induction-
coil, so as to disturb any magnetic or dlamag-
netic sensibility which It seems just possible
that they may possess."

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

To treat an Insect as you would a mag-
netic needle and to subject it to the current
from an induction-coil in order to disturb Its
magnetism or diamagnetism appeared to me,
I must confess, a curious notion, worthy of
an imagination in the last ditch. I have but
little confidence In our physics, when they pre-
tend to explain life; nevertheless, my respect
for the great man would have made me re-
sort to the Induction-coils, If I had possessed
the necessai-y apparatus. But my village
boasts no scientific resources: If I want an
electric spark, I am reduced to rubbing a sheet
of paper on my knees. My physics cupboard
contains a magnet; and that Is about all.
When this penury was realized, another
method was suggested, simpler than the first
and more certain In Its results, as Darwin him-
self considered:

"To mak" a very thin needle Into a mag-
net; then breaking It into very short pieces,
which would still be magnetic, and fastening
one of these pieces with some cement on the
thorax of the Insects to be experimented on.
I believe that such a little magnet, from its
close proximity to the nervous system of the
103

The Mason-bees

insect, would affect It more than would the
terrestrial currents."

There is still the same idea of turning the
insect into a sort of bar magnet. The ter-
restrial currents guide it when returning to
the nest. It becomes a living compass which,
withdrawn from the action of the earth by
the proximity of a loadstone, loses its sense of
direction. With a tiny magnet fastened on
its thorax, parallel with the nervous system
and more powerful than the terrestrial mag-
netism by reason of its comparative nearness,
the insect will lose its bearings. Naturally,
in setting down these lines, I take shelter be-
hind the mighty reputation of the learned be-
getter of the idea. It v/ould not be accepted
as serious coming from a humble person like
myself. Obscurity cannot afford these auda-
cious theories.

The experiment seems easy; it is not be-
yond the means at my disposal. Let us at-
tempt it. I magnetize a very fine needle by
rubbing it with my bar magnet; I retain only
the slenderest part, the point, some five or
six millimetres long.^ This broken piece is a

*.2 to .23 inch. — Translator's Note.
104

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

perfect magnet : it attracts and repels another
magnetized needle hanging from a thread.
I am a little puzzled as to the best way to
fasten it on the insect's thorax. My assistant
of the moment, the pharmaceutical student,
requisitions all the adhesives in his labora-
tory. The best is a sort of cerecloth which
he prepares specially with a very fine mate-
rial. It possesses the advantage that it can
be softened at the bowl of one's pipe when the
time comes to operate out of doors.

I cut out of this cerecloth a small square
the size of the Bee's thorax; and I insert the
magnetized point through a few threads of
the material. All that we now have to do is
to soften the gum a little and then dab the
thing at once on the Mason-bee's back, so
that the broken needle runs parallel with the
spine. Other engines of the same kind are
prepared and due note taken of their poles,
so as to enable me to point the south pole at
the insect's head in some cases and at the op-
posite end In others.

My assistant and I began by rehearsing the

performance; we must have a little practice

before trying the experiment away from

home. Besides, I want to see how the insect

los

The Mason-bees

will behave in its magetic harness. I take
a Mason-bee at work in her cell, which I
mark. I carry her to my study, at the other
end of the house. The magnetized outfit is
fastened on the thorax ; and the insect is let go.
The moment she is free, the Bee drops to the
ground and rolls about, like a mad thing, on
the floor of the room. She resumes her flight,
flops down again, turns over on her side, on
her back, knocks against the things in her
way, buzzes noisily, flings herself about de-
sperately and ends by daring through the
open window in headlong flight.

What does it all mean? The magnet ap-
pears to have a curious effect on my patient's
system ! What a fuss she makes ! How ter-
rified she is! The Bee seemed utterly dis-
traught at losing her bearings tinder the in-
fluence of my knavish tricks. Let us go to the
nests and see what happens. We have not
long to wait : my insect returns, but rid of its
magnetic tackle. I recognize it by the traces
of gum that still cling to the hair of the
thorax. It goes back to its cell and resumes
its labours.

Always on my guard when searching the
unknown, unwilling to draw conclusions be-
io6

More Enquiries into Mason-bees

fore weighing the arguments for and against,
I feel doubt creeping in upon me with regard
to what I have seen. Was It really the mag-
netic Influence that disturbed my Bee so
strangely? When she struggled and kicked
on the floor, fighting wildly with both legs
and wings, when she fled in terror, was she
under the sway of the magnet fastened on her
back? Can my appliance have thwarted the
guiding Influence of the terrestrial currents
on her nervous system? Or was her distress
merely the result of an unwonted harness?
This Is what remains to be seen and that with-
out delay.

I construct a new apparatus, but provide it
with a short straw In place of the magnet.
The insect carrying It on Its back rolls on the
ground, kicks and flings herself about like the
first, until the Irksome contrivance Is removed,
taking with It a part of the fur on the thorax.
The straw produces the same effects as the
magnet, in other words, magnetism had no-
thing to do with what happened. My inven-
tion, In both cases alike. Is a cumbrous tackle
of which the Bee tries to rid herself at once
by every possible means. To look to her for
normal actions so long as she carries an ap-
107

The Mason-bees

paratus, magnetized or not, upon her back is
the same as expecting to study the natural
habits of a Dog after tying a kettle to his tail.
The experiment with the magnet is im-
practicable. What would it tell us if the in-
sect consented to it? In mxy opinion, it would
tell us nothing. In the matter of. the homing
instinct, a magnet would have no more influ-
ence than a bit of straw.

xo8

CHAPTER V

THE STORY OF MY CATS

IF THIS swinging-process fails entirely
when its object is to make the insect lose
its bearings, what influence can it have upon
the Cat? Is the method of whirling the ani-
mal round In a bag, to prevent Its return,
worthy of confidence? I believed In it at
first, so close-allied was it to the hopeful idea
suggested by the great Darwin. But my faith
is now shaken : my experience with the insect
makes me doubtful of the Cat. If the former
returns after being whirled, why should not
the latter?. I therefore embark upon fresh
experiments.

And, first of all, to what extent does the
Cat deserve his reputation of being able to
return to the beloved home, to the scenes of
his amorous exploits, on the tiles and in the
hay-lofts? The most curious facts are told
of his instinct; children's books on natural his-
tory abound with feats that do the greatest
credit to his prowess as a pilgrim. I do not
109

The Mason-bees

attach much importance to these stones : they
come from casual observers, uncritical folk
given to exaggeration. It is not everybody
who can talk about animals correctly. When
some one not of the craft gets on the subject
and says to me, "Such or such an animal is
black," I begin by finding out if it does not
happen to be white ; and many a time the truth
Is discovered in the converse proposition.
Men come to me and sing the praises of the
Cat as a travelling expert. Well and good:
we will now look upon the Cat as a poor tra-
veller. And that would be the extent of my
knowledge If I had only the evidence of books
and of people unaccustomed to the scruples
of scientific examination. Fortunately, I am
acquainted with a few Incidents that will stand
the test of my Incredulity. The Cat really de-
serves his reputation as a discerning pilgrim.
Let us relate these incidents.

One day — it was at Avignon — there ap-
peared upon the garden-wall a wretched-
looking Cat, with matted cqat and protru-
ding ribs; so thin that his back was a jagged
ridge. He was mewing with hunger. My
children, at that time very young, took pity
on his misery. Bread soaked In milk was of-

IIO

The Story of My Cats

fered him at the end of a reed. He took it.
And the mouthfuls succeeded one another to
such good purpose that he was sated and went
off, heedless of the "Puss! Puss!" of his com-
passionate friends. Hunger returned; and
the starveling reappeared in his wall-top
refectory. He received the same fare of
bread soaked in milk, the same soft words.
He allowed himself to be tempted. He came
down from the wall. The children were able
to stroke his back. Goodness, how thin he

was!

It was the great topic of conversation.
We discussed it at table : we would tame the
vagabond, we would keep him, we would
make him a bed of hay. It was a most im-
portant matter: I can see to this day, I shall
always see the council of rattleheads deli-
berating on the Cats fate. They were not
satisfied until the savage animal remained.
Soon he grew into a magnificent Tom. His
large round head, his muscular legs, his red-
dish fur, flecked with darker patches, re-
minded one of a little jaguar. He was
christened Ginger because of his tawny hue.
A mate joined him later, picked up in almost
similar circumstances. Such was the origin

III

The Mason-bees

of my series of Gingers, which I have re-
tained for little short of twenty years through
the vicissitudes of my various removals.

The first of these removals took place in
1870. A little earlier, a minister who has
left a lasting memory in the University, that
fine man, Victor Duruy,^ had instituted classes
for the secondary education of girls. This
was the beginning, as far as was then possi-
ble, of the burning question of to-day. 1 very
gladly lent my humble aid to this labour of
light. I was put to teach physical and natural
science. I had faith and was not sparing of
work, with the result that I rarely faced a
more attentive or interested audience. The
days on which the lessons fell were red-letter
days, especially when the lesson was botany
and the table disappeared from view under
the treasures of the neighbouring conserva-
tories.

That was going too far. In fact, you can
see how heinous my crime was : I taught those
young persons what air and water are;

^Jean Victor Duruy (1811-1894), author of a number
of historical works, including a well-known Histoire des
romains, and minister of public instruction under Napo-
leon III. from 1863 to 1869. Cf. The Life of the Fly:
chap, XX. — Translator's Note.

112

The Story of My Cats

whence the lightning comes and the thunder;
by what device our thoughts are transmitted
across the seas and continents by means of
a metal wire; why fire burns and why we
breathe; how a seed puts forth shoots and
how a flower blossoms: all eminently hateful
things in the eyes of some people, whose fee-
ble eyes are dazzled by the light of day.

The little lamp must be put out as quickly
as possible and measures taken to get rid of
the officious person who strove to keep it
alight. The scheme was darkly plotted with
the old maids who owned my house and who
saw the abomination of desolation in these
new educational methods. I had no written
agreement to protect me. The bailiff appeared
with a notice on stamped paper. It baldly
informed me that I must move out within
four weeks from date, failing which the law
would turn my goods and chattels into the
street. I had hurriedly to provide myself
with a dwelling. The first house which we
found happened to be at Orange. Thus was
my exodus from Avignon effected.

We were somewhat anxious about the mo-
ving of the Cats. We were all of us attached
to them and should have thought it nothing
"3

The Mason-bees

short of criminal to abandon the poor crea-
tures, whom we had so often petted, to di-
stress and probably to thoughtless persecution.
The shes and the kittens would travel with-
out any trouble: all you have to do is to put
them in a basket; they will keep quiet on the
journey. But the old Tom-cats were a seri-
ous problem. I had two: the head of the
family, the patriarch; and one of his descend-
ants, quite as strong as himself. We decided
to take the grandsire, if he consented to come,
and to leave the grandson behind, after find-
ing him a home.

My friend Dr. Loriol offered to take
charge of the forsaken one. The animal was
carried to him at nightfall in a closed hamper.
Hardly were we seated at the evening-meal,
talking of the good fortune of our Tom-cat,
when we saw a dripping mass jump through
the window. The shapeless bundle came and
rubbed itself against our legs, purring with
happiness. It was the Cat.

I learnt his story next day. On arriving at
Dr. Loriol's, he was locked up In a bedroom.
The moment he saw himself a prisoner in the
unfamiliar room, he began to jump about
wildly on the furniture, against the window-
114

The Story of My Cats

panes, among the ornaments on the mantel-
piece, threatening to make short work of
everything. Mme. Loriol was frightened by
the Httle lunatic; she hastened to open the
window; and the Cat leapt out among the
passers-by. A few minutes later, he was back
at home. Arjd it was no easy matter : he had
to cross the town almost from end to end;
he had to make his way through a long laby-
rinth of crowded streets, amid a thousand dan-
gers, including first boys and next dogs;
lastly — and this perhaps was an even more
serious obstacle — he had to pass over the
Sorgue, a river running through Avignon.
There were bridges at hand, many, in fact;
but the animal, taking the shortest cut, had
used none of them, bravely jumping Into the
water, as Its streaming fur showed. I had
pity on the poor Cat, so faithful to his home.
We agreed to do our utmost to take him with
us. We were spared the worry: a few days
later, he was found lying stiff and stark under
a shrub In the garden. The plucky animal
had fallen a victim to some stupid act of spite.
Some one had poisoned him for me. Who?
It Is not likely that it was a friend!

There remained the old Cat. He was not
"5

The Mason-bees

indoors when we started; he was prowling
round the hay-lofts of the neighbourhood.
The carrier was promised an extra ten francs
if he brought the Cat to Orange with one of
the loads which he had still to convey. On
his last journey he brought him stowed away
under the driver's seat. I scarcely knew my
old Tom when we opened the moving prison
in which he had been confined since the day
before. He came out looking a most alarm-
ing beast, scratching and spitting, with
bristling hair, bloodshot eyes, lips white with
foam. I thought him mad and watched him
closely for a time. I was wrong : it was merely
the fright of a bewildered animal. Had
there been trouble with the carrier when he
was caught? Did he have a bad time on the
journey? History is silent on both points.
What I do know is that the very nature of
the Cat seemed changed: there was no more
friendly purring, no more rubbing against our
legs; nothing but a wild expression and the
deepest gloom. Kind treatment could not
soothe him. For a few weeks longer, he
dragged his wretched existence from corner
to corner; then, one day, I found him lying
dead in the ashes on the hearth. Grief, with
ii6

The Story of My Cats

the help of old age, had killed him. Would
he have gone back to Avignon, had he had
the strength? I would not venture to affirm
it. But, at least, I think it very remarkable
that an animal should let itself die of home-
sickness because the infirmities of age prevent
it from returning to its old haunts.

What the patriarch could not attempt, we
shall see another do, over a much shorter di-
stance, I admit. A fresh move is resolved
upon, to give me, at long length, the peace
and quiet essential to my work. This time,
I hope that it will be the last. I leave Orange
for Serignan.

The family of Gingers has been renewed:
the old ones have passed away, new ones have
come, including a full-grown Tom, worthy in
all respects of his ancestors. He alone will
give us some difficulty; the others, the babies
and the mothers, can be removed without
trouble. We put them into baskets. The
Tom has one to himself, so that the peace
may be kept. The journey is made by car-
riage, in company with my family. Nothing
striking happens before our arrival. Re-
leased from their hampers, the females In-
spect the new home, explore the rooms one

117

The Mason-bees

by one; with their pink noses they recognize
the furniture: they find their own seats, their
own tables, their own arm-chairs; but the sur-
roundings are dijEferent. They give little sur-
prised miaows and questioning glances. A
few caresses and a saucer of milk allay all
their apprehensions; and, by the next day, the
mother Cats are acclimatized.

It is a different matter with the Tom. We
house him in the attics, where he will find
ample room for his capers; we keep him com-
pany, to relieve the weariness of captivity;
we take him a double portion of plates to lick;
from time to time, we place him in touch with
some of his family, to show him that he is not
alone in the house ; we pay him a host of at-
tentions, in the hope of making him forget
Orange. He appears, in fact, to forget it:
he is gentle under the hand that pets him, he
comes when called, purrs, arches his back. It
is well: a week of seclusion and kindly treat-
ment have banished all notions of returning.
Let us give him his liberty. He goes down
to the kitchen, stands by the table like the
others, goes out into the garden, under the
watchful eye of Aglae, who does not lose sight
of him; he prowls all around with the most
ii8

The Story of My Cats

innocent air. He comes back. Victory ! The
Tom-cat will not run away.

Next morning:

"Puss! Puss!"

Not a sign of him! We hunt, we call.
Nothing, Oh, the hypocrite, the hypocrite !
How he has tricked us! He has gone, he is
at Orange. None of those about me can be-
lieve in this venturesome pilgrimage. I de-
clare that the deserter is at this moment at
Orange mewing outside the empty house.

Aglae and Claire went to Orange. They
found the Cat, as I said they would, and
brought him back in a hamper. His paws
and belly were covered with red clay; and yet
the weather was dry, there was no mud. The
Cat, therefore, must have got wet crossing
the Aygues torrent; and the moist fur had
kept the red earth of the fields through which
he had passed. The distance from Serignan
to Orange, in a straight line, is four and a
half miles. There are two bridges over the
Aygues, one above and one below that line,
some distance away. The Cat took neither
the one nor the other: his instinct told him
the shortest road and he followed that road,
as his belly, covered with red mud, proved.
119

The Mason-bees

He crossed the torrent In May, at a time when
the rivers run high; he overcame his repug-
nance to water in order to return to his be-
loved home. The Avignon Tom did the same
when crossing the Sorgue.

The deserter was reinstated In his attic at
Serignan. He stayed there for a fortnight;
and at last we let him out. Twenty-four
hours had not elapsed before he was back at
Orange. We had to abandon him to his un-
happy fate. A neighbour living out in the
country, near my former house, told me that
he saw him one day hiding behind a hedge
with a rabbit in his mouth. Once no longer
provided with food, he, accustomed to all the
sweets of a Cat's existence, turned poacher,
taking toll of the farm-yards round about my
old home. I heard no more of him. He came
to a bad end, no doubt : he had become a rob-
ber and must have met with a robber's fate.

The experiment has been made and here is
the conclusion, twice proved. Full-grown
Cats can find their way home, in spite of the
distance and their complete ignorance of the
intervening ground. They have, in their own
fashion, the instinct of my Mason-bees. A
second point remains to be cleared up, that

I20

The Story of My Cats

of the swinging motion in the bag. Are they
thrown out of their latitude by this stratagem,
or are they not? I was thinking of making
some experiments, when more precise infor-
mation arrived and taught me that it was not
necessary. The first who acquainted me with
the method of the revolving bag was telling
the story told him by a second person, who
repeated the story of a third, a story related
on the authority of a fourth; and so on.
None had tried it, none had seen it for him-
self. It is a tradition of the country-side.
One and all extol it as an infallible method,
without, for the most part, having attempted
it. And the reason which they give for its
success is, in their eyes, conclusive. If, say
they, we ourselves are blindfolded and then
spin round for a few seconds, we no longer
know where we are. Even so with the Cat
carried off in the darkness of the swinging
bag. They argue from man to the animal,
just as others argue from the animal to man:
a faulty method in either case, if there really
be two distinct psychic worlds.

The belief would not be so deep-rooted In
the peasant's mind, if facts had not from time
to time confirmed it. But we may assume

121

The Mason-bees

that, in successful cases, the Cats made to
lose their bearings were young and unemanci-
pated animals. With those neophytes, a drop
of milk is enough to dispel the grief of exile.
They do not return home, whether they have
been whirled in a bag or not. People have
thought it as well to subject them to the whirl-
ing operation by way of an additional precau-
tion; and the method has received the credit
of a success that has nothing to do with it.
In order to test the method properly, it should
have been tried on a full-grown Cat, a genu-
ine Tom.

I did in the end get the evidence which I
wanted on this point. Intelligent and trust-
worthy people, not given to jumping to con-
clusions, have told me that they have tried
the trick of the swinging bag to keep Cats
from returning to their homes. None of them
succeeded when the animal was full-grown.
Though carried to a great distance, into an-
other house, and subjected to a conscientious
series of revolutions, the Cat always came
back. I have in mind, more particularly a
destroyer of the Gold-fish in a fountain, who,
when transported from Serignan to Piolenc,
according to the time-honoured method, re-

122

The Story of My Cats

turned to his fish ; who, when carried into the
mountain and left in the woods, returned once
more. The bag and the swinging round
proved of no avail; and the miscreant had to
be put to death. I have verified a fair num-
ber of similar instances, all under most fa-
vourable conditions. The evidence is unani-
mous: the revolving motion never keeps the
adult Cat from returning home. The popu-
lar belief, which I found so seductive at first,
is a country prejudice, based upon imperfect
observation. We must, therefore, abandon
Darwin's idea when trying to explain the ho-
ming of the Cat as well as of the Mason-bee.

123

CHAPTER VI

THE RED ANTS

THE Pigeon transported for hundreds of
miles is able to find his way back to his
Dove-cot; the Swallow, returning from his
winter quarters in Africa, crosses the sea and
once more takes possession of the old nest.
What guides them on these long journeys?
Is it sight? An observer of supreme intelli-
gence, one who, though surpassed by others in
the knowledge of the stuffed animal under a
glass case, is almost unrivalled in his know-
ledge of the live animal in its wild state,
Toussenel,^ the admirable writer of L'Esprit
des betes, speaks of sight and metereology as
the Carrier-pigeon's guides:

"The French bird," he says, "knows by ex-
perience that the cold weather comes from
the north, the hot from the south, the dry

'Alphonse Toussenel (i 803-1885), the author of a num-
ber of interesting and valuable works on ornithology. —
Translator's Note.

124

The Red Ants

from the east and the wet from the west. That
is enough meteorological knowledge to tell
him the cardinal points and to direct his flight.
The Pigeon taken In a closed basket from
Brussels to Toulouse has certainly no means
of reading the map of the route with his eyes;
but no one can prevent him from feeling, by
the warmth of the atmosphere, that he is pur-
suing the road to the south. When restored
to hberty at Toulouse, he already knows that
the direction which he must follow to regain
his dove-cot is the direction of the north.
Therefore, he wings straight in that direction
and does not stop until he nears those latitudes
where the mean temperature is that of the
zone which he inhabits. If he does not find
his home at the first onset, it is because he has
borne a little too much to the right or to the
left. In any case, it takes him but a few
hours' search in an easterly or westerly direc-
tion to correct his mistake."

The explanation is a tempting one when
the journey is taken north and south; but it
does not apply to a journey east and west,
on the same isothermal line. Besides, it has
this defect, that it does not admit of gen-
125

The Mason-bees

eralizatlon. One cannot talk of sight and still
less of the influence of a change of climate
when a Cat returns home, from one end of a
town to the other, threading his way through
a labyrinth of streets and alleys which he sees
for the first time. Nor is it sight that guides
my Mason-bees, especially when they are let
loose in the thick of a wood. Their low flight,
eight or nine feet above the ground, does not
allow them to take a panoramic view nor to
gather the lie of the land. What need have
they of topography? Their hesitation Is
short-lived: after describing a few narrow cir-
cles around the experimenter, they start in
the direction of the nest, despite the cover of
the forest, despite the screen of a tall chain of
hills which they cross by mounting the slope at
no great height from the ground. Sight en-
ables them to avoid obstacles, without giving
them a general idea of their road. Nor has
meteorology aught to do with the case: the
climate has not varied in those few miles of
transit. My Mason-bees have not learnt from
any experiences of heat, cold, dryness and
damp: an existence of a few weeks' duration
does not allow of this. And, even if they
knew all about the four cardinal points, there
126

The Red Ants

is no difference in climate between the spot
where their nest lies and the spot at which
they are released; so that does not help them
to settle the direction in which they arc to
travel.

To explain these many mysteries, wc are
driven, therefore, to appeal to yet another
mystery, that is to say, a special sense denied
to mankind. Charles Darwin, whose weighty
authority no one will gainsay, arrives at the
same conclusion. To ask if the animal be
not impressed by the terrestrial currents, to
enquire if it be not influenced by the close
proximity of a magnetic needle: what is this
but the recognition of a magnetic sense? Do
we possess a similar faculty? I am speak-
ing, of course, of the magnetism of the physi-
cists and not of the magnetism of the Mes-
mers and Cagliostros. Assuredly we possess
nothing remotely like it. What need would
the mariner have of a compass were he him-
self a compass?

And this is what the great scientist ac-
knowledges : a special sense, so foreign to our
organism that we are not able to form a con-
ception of it, guides the Pigeon, the Swallow,
the Cat, the Mason-bee and a host of others
127

The Mason-bees

when away from home. Whether this sense
be magnetic or no I will not take upon myself
to decide; I am content to have helped, in no
small degree, to establish its existence. A new
sense added to our number: what an acquisi-
tion, what a source of progress ! Why are
we deprived of it? It would have been a
fine weapon and of great service in the strug-
gle for life. If, as is contended, the whole
of the animal kingdom, including man, is de-
rived from a single mould, the original cell,
and becomes self-evolved in the course of
time, favouring the best-endowed and leaving
the less well-endowed to perish, how comes it
that this wonderful sense is the portion of a
humble few and that it has left no trace in
man, the culminating achievement of the zoo-
logical progression? Our precursors were
very Ill-advised to let so magnificent an in-
heritance go : It was better worth keeping than
a vertebra of the coccyx or a hair of the
moustache.

Does not the fact that this sense has not

been handed down to us point to a flaw in

the pedigree? I submit the little problem to

the evolutionists; and I should much like to

128

The Red Ants

know what their protoplasm and their nucleus
have to say to it.

Is this unknown sense localized in a particu-
lar part of the Wasp and the Bee? Is it ex-
ercised by means of a special organ? We im-
mediately think, of the antennae. The
antennae are what we always fall back upon
when the insect's actions are not quite clear
to us ; we gladly put down to them whatever
is most necessary to our arguments. For that
matter, I had plenty of fairly good reasons for
suspecting them of containing the sense of di-
rection. When the Hairy Ammophila'^ is
searching for the Grey Worm, it is with
her antennae, those tiny fingers continually
fumbling at the soil, that she seems to recog-
nize the presence of the underground prey.
Could not those inquisitive filaments, which
seem to guide the insect when hunting, also
guide it when travelling? This remained to
be seen; and I did see.

I took some Mason-bees and amputated
their antennas with the scissors, as closely as

*A Sand-wasp, who hunts the Grey Worm, or Cater-
pillar of the Turnip-moth, to serve as food for her grubs.
For other varieties of the Aramophila, cf. Insect Life:
chap. XV. — Translator's Note.

129

The Mason-bees

I could. These maimed ones were then car-
ried to a distance and released. They returned
to the nest with as little difficulty as the others.
I once experimented in the same way with the
largest of our Cerceres {Cerceris tiihercU'
lata) '^ and the Weevil-huntress returned to
her galleries. This rids us of one hypothesis:
the sense of direction is not exercised by the
antennae. Then where is its seat? I do not
know.

What I do know is that the Mason-bees
without antennae, though they go back to the
cells, do not resume work. They persist in
flying in front of their masonry, they alight
on the clay cup, they perch on the rim of the
cell and there, seemingly pensive and forlorn,
stand for a long time contemplating the work
which will never be finished ; they go off, they
come back, they djive away any importunate
neighbour, but they fetch and carry no more
honey or mortar. The next day, they do not
appear. Deprived of her tools, the worker
loses all heart in her task. When the Mason-
bee is building, the antennae are constantly

'Another Hunting-wasp, who feeds her young on
Weevils. Cf. Insect Life: chaps, iv. and v. — Translator's
Note.

ISO

The Red Ants

feeling, fumbling and exploring, superintend-
ing, as it were, the finishing touches given to
the work. They are her instruments of pre-
cision ; they represent the builder's compasses,
square, level and plumb-line.

Hitherto, my experiments have been con-
fined to the females, who are much more faith-
ful to the nest by virtue of their maternal re-
sponsibilities. What would the males do if
they were taken from home ? I have no great
confidence in these swains who, for a few
days, form a tumultuous throng outside the
nests, wait for the females to emerge, quarrel
for their possession, amid endless brawls, and
then disappear when the works are in full
swing. What care they, I ask myself, about
returning to the natal nest rather than settling
elsewhere, provided that they find some recipi-
ent for their amatory declarations? I was
mistaken : the males do return to the nest. It
is true that, in view of their lack of strength,
I did not subject them to a long journey : about
half a mile or so. Nevertheless, this repre-
sented to them a distant expedition, an un-
known country; for I do not see them go on
long excursions. By day, they visit the nests
or the flowers in the garden; at night, they
131

The Mason-bees

take refuge in the old galleries or in the Inter-
stices of the stone-heaps in the harmas.

The same nests are frequented by two
Osmia-bees {Osmia tricornis and Osmia
Latreillii), who build their cells In the galler-
ies left at their disposal by the Chalicodomae.
The most numerous is the first, the Three-
horned Osmia. It was a splendid opportunity
to try and discover to what extent the sense
of direction may be regarded as general in.
the Bees and Wasps; and I took, advantage
of it. Well, the Osmias {Osmia tricornis)^
both male and female, can find their way back
to the nest. My experiments were made very
quickly, with small numbers and over short
distances; but the results agreed so closely
with the others that I was convinced. All
told, the return to the nest. Including my
earlier attempts, was verified in the case of
four species: the Chalicodoma of the Sheds,
the Chalicodoma of the Walls, the Three-
horned Osmia and the Warted Cerceris
{Cerceris tiiberciilata) ^ Shall I generalize
without reserve and allow all the Hymenop-
tera" this faculty of finding their way in un-

^Insect Life: chap. xix. — Translator's Note.

*The Hymenoptera are an order of insects having four

132

The Red Ants

known country? I shall do nothing of the
kind ; for here, to my knowledge, is a contra-
dictory and very significant result.

Among the treasures of my harmas-
laboratory, I place in the first rank an Ant-
hill of Polyergus rufescens, the celebrated
Red Ant, the slave-hunting Am.azon. Un-
able to rear her family, incapable of seeking
her food, of taking it even when it is within
her reach, she needs servants who feed her
and undertake the duties of housekeeping.
The Red Ants make a practice of stealing
children to wait on the community. They ran-
sack the neighbouring Ant-hills,- the home of
a different species; they carry away nymphs,
which soon attain maturity in the strange
house and become willing and industrious
servants.

When the hot weather of June and July
sets in, I often see the Amazons leave their
barracks of an afternoon and start on an ex-
pedition. The column measures five or six
yards in length. If nothing worthy of atten-
tion be met upon the road, the ranks are fairly
well maintained; but, at the first suspicion of

membranous wings and include the Bees, Wasp«, Ants,
Saw-flies and Ichneumon-flies. — Translator's Note.

133

The Mason-bees

an Ant-hill, the vanguard halts and deploys
in a swarming throng, which is increased by
the others as they come up hurriedly. Scouts
are sent out ; the Amazons recognize that they
are on a wrong track; and the column forms
again. It resumes its march, crosses the
garden-paths, disappears from sight in the
grass, reappears farther on, threads its way
through the heaps of dead leaves, comes out
again and continues its search. At last, a nest
of Black Ants is discovered. The Red Ants
hasten down to the dormitories where the
nymphs lie and soon emerge with their booty.
Then we have, at the gates of the under-
ground city, a bewildering scrimmage between
the defending blacks and the attacking reds.
The struggle is too unequal to remain Inde-
cisive. Victory falls to the reds, who race
back to their abode, each with her prize, a
swaddled nymph, dangling from her mandi-
bles. The reader who is not acquainted with
these slave-raiding habits would be greatly in-
terested in the story of the Amazons. I re-
linquish it, with much regret : it would take us
too far from our subject, namely, the return
to the nest.

The distance covered by the nymph-
134

The Red Ants

stealing column varies: it all depends on
whether Black Ants are plentiful in the neigh-
bourhood. At times, ten or twenty yards suf-
fice; at others, it requires fifty, a hundred or
more. I once saw the expedition go beyond
the garden. The Amazons scaled the sur-
rounding wall, which was thirteen feet high
at that point, climbed over it and went on
a little farther, into a corn-field. As for the
route taken, this is a matter of indifference
to the marching column. Bare ground, thick
grass, a heap of dead leaves or stones, brick-
work, a clump of shrubs: all are crossed with-
out any marked preference for one sort of
road rather than another.

What is rigidly fixed is the path home,
which follows the outward track in all its
windings and all its crossings, however diffi-
cult. Laden with their plunder, the Red Ants
return to the nest by the same road, often an
exceedingly complicated one, which the exigen-
cies of the chase compelled them to take
originally. They repass each spot which they
passed at first; and this is to them a matter
of such imperative necessity that no additional
fatigue nor even the gravest danger can make
them alter the track.

I3S

The Mason-bees

Let us suppose that they have crossed a
thick heap of dead leaves, representing to
them a path beset with yawning gulfs, where
every moment some one falls, where many
are exhausted as they struggle out of the hol-
lows and reach the heights by means of sway-
ing bridges, emerging at last from the laby-
rinth of lanes. No matter: on their return,
they will not fail, though weighed down with
their burden, once more to struggle through
that weary maze. To avoid all this fatigue,
they would have but to swerve slightly from
the original path, for the good, smooth road
is there, hardly a step away. This little devi-
ation never occurs to them.

I came upon them one day when they were
on one of their raids. They were marching
along the inner edge of the stone-work of the
garden-pond, where I have replaced the old
batrachians by a colony of Gold-fish. The
wind was blowing very hard from the north
and, taking the column in flank, sent whole
rows of the Ants flying into the water. The
fish hurried up ; they watched the performance
and gobbled up the drowning insects. It was
a diflicult bit; and the column was decimated
before it had passed. I expected to see the
136

The Red Ants

return journey made by another road, which
would wind round and avoid the fatal diff.
Not at all. The nymph-laden band resumed
the parlous path and the Gold-fish received
a double windfall: the Ants and their prizes.
Rather than alter its track, the column was
decimated a second time.

It is not easy to find the way home again
after a distant expedition, during which there
have been various sorties, nearly always by
different paths; and this difficulty makes it
absolutely necessary for the Amazons to re-
turn by the same road by which they went.
The insect has no choice of route, if it would
not be lost on the way : it must come back by
the track which it knows and which it has
lately travelled. The Processionary Caterpil-
lars, when they leave their nest and go to an-
other branch, on another tree, in search of a
type of leaf more to their taste, carpet the
course with silk and are able to return home
by following the threads stretched along their
road. This is the most elementary method
open to the insect liable to stray on its ex-
cursions: a silken path brings It home again.
The Processionaries, with their unsophisti-
cated traffic-laws, are very different from the
137

The Mason-bees

Mason-bees and others, who have a special
sense to guide them.

The Amazon, though belonging to the
Hymenopteron clan, herself possesses rather
limited homing-faculties, as witness her com-
pulsory return by her former trail. Can she
imitate, to a certain extent, the Procession-
aries' method, that is to say, does she leave,
along the road trav^ersed, not a series of con-
ducting threads, for she is not equipped for
that work, but some odorous emanation, for
instance, some formic scent, which would
allow her to guide herself by means of the
olfactory sense? This view is pretty gen-
erally accepted. The Ants, people say, are
guided by the sense of smell; and this sense
of smell appears to have its seat in the
antennae, which we see in continual palpita-
tion. It is doubtless very reprehensible, but
I must admit that the theory does not inspire
me with overwhelming enthusiasm. In the
first place, I have my suspicions about a sense
of smell seated in the antennae : I have given
my reasons before; and, next, I hope to prove
by experiment that the Red Ants are not
guided by a scent of any kind.

To lie in wait for my Amazons, for whole
138

The Red Ants

afternoons on end, often unsuccessfully,
meant taking up too much of my time. I
engaged an assistant whose hours were not
so much occupied as mine. It was my grand-
daughter Lucie, a little rogue who liked to
hear my stories of the Ants. She had been
present at the great battle between the reds
and blacks and was much impressed by the
rape of the long-clothes babies. Well-coached
in her exalted functions, very proud of al-
ready serving that august lady. Science, my
little Lucie would wander about the garden,
when the weather seemed propitious, and keep
an eye on the Red Ants, having been commis^
sioned to reconnoitre carefully the road to the
pillaged Ant-hill. She had given proof of her
zeal; I could rely upon It.

One day, while I was spinning out my daily
quota of prose, there came a banging at my
study-door:

"It's I, Lucie! Come quick: the reds have
gone into the blacks' house. Come quick !"

"And do you know the road they took?"

"Yes, I marked it."

"What! Marked It? And how?"

"I did what Hop-o'-My-Thumb did: I
scattered little white stones along the road."
139

The Mason-bees

I hurried out. Things had happened as my
six-year-old colleague said. Lucie had se-
cured her provision of pebbles In advance
and, on seeing the Amazon regiment leave
barracks, had followed them step by step and
placed her stones at Intervals along the road
covered. The Ants had made their raid and
were beginning to return along the track of
tell-tale pebbles. The distance to the nest was
about a hundred paces, which gave me time
to make preparations for an experiment pre-
viously contemplated.

I take a big broom and sweep the track for
about a yard across. The dusty particles on
the surface are thus removed and replaced by
others. If they were tainted with any odor-
ous effluvia, their absence will throw the Ants
off the track. I divide the road, in this way,
at four different points, a few feet apart.

The colum.n arrives at the first section.
The hesitation of the Ants is evident. Some
recede and then return, only to recede once
more; others wander along the edge of the
cutting; others disperse sideways and seem
to be trying to skirt the unknown country.
The head of the column, at first closed up to
a width of a foot or so, now scatters to three
140

The Red Ants

or four yards. But fresh arrivals gather in
their numbers before the obstacle ; they form
a mighty array, an undecided horde. At last,
a few Ants venture Into the swept zone and
others follow, while a few have meantime
gone ahead and recovered the track by a cir-
cuitous route. At the other cuttings, there
are the same halts, the same hesitations; ne-
vertheless, they are crossed, either In a
straight line or by going round. In spite of
my snares, the Ants manage to return to the
nest; and that by way of the little stones.

The result of the experiment seems to
argue In favour of the sense of smell. Four
times over, there are manifest hesitations wher-
ever the road is swept. Thougii the return
takes place, nevertheless, along the original
track, this may be due to the uneven work of
the broom, which has left certain particles of
the scented dust In position. The Ants who
went round the cleared portion may have been
guided by the sweepings removed to either
side. Before, therefore, pronouncing judg-
ment for or against the sense of smell. It were
^well to renew the experiment under better
conditions and to remove everything contain-
ing a vestige of scent.
141

The Mason-bees

A few days later, when I have definitely de-
cided on my plan, Lucie resumes her watch
and soon comes to tell me of a sortie. I was
counting on it, for the Amazons rarely miss
an expedition during the hot and sultry after-
noons of June and July, especially when
the weather threatens storm. Hop-o'-My-
Thumb's pebbles once more mark out the
road, on which I choose the point best-suited
to my schemes.

A garden-hose is fixed to one of the feeders
of the pond; the sluice is opened; and the
Ants' path is cut by a continuous torrent, two
or three feet wide and of unlimited length.
The sheet of water flows swiftly and plenti-
fully at first, so as to wash the ground well
and remove anything that may possess a
scent. This thorough washing lasts for nearly
a quarter of an hour. Then, when the Ants
draw near, returning from the plunder, I let
the water flow more slowly and reduce its
depth, so as not to overtax the strength of the
insects. Now we have an obstacle which the
Amazons must surmount, if it is absolutely
necessary for them to follow the first trail.

This time, the hesitation lasts long and the
stragglers have time to come up with the head
142

The Red Ants

of the column. Nevertheless, an attempt Is
made to cross the torrent by means of a few
bits of gravel projecting above the water;
then, failing to find bottom, the more reck-
less of the Ants are swept off their feet and,
without loosing hold of their prizes, drift
away, land on some shoal, regain the bank
and renew their search for a ford. A few
straws borne on the waters stop and become
so many shaky bridges, on which the Ants
climb. Dry olive-leaves are converted into
rafts, each with its load of passengers. The
more venturesome, partly by their own ef-
forts, partly by good luck, reach the opposite
bank without adventitious aid. I see some
who, dragged by the current to one or the
other bank, two or three yards off, seem very
much concerned as to what they shall do next.
Amid this disorder, amid the dangers of
drowning, not one lets go her booty. She
would not dream of doing so : death sooner
than that! In a word, the torrent is crossed
somehow or other along the regular track.

The scent of the road cannot be the cause
of this, it seems to me, for the torrent not
only washed the ground some time before-
hand, but also pours fresh water on it all the
143

The Mason-bees

time that the crossing is taking place. Let
us now see what will happen when the formic
scent, if there really be one on the trail, is
replaced by another, much stronger odour, one
perceptible to our own sense of smell, which
the first is not, at least not under present
conditions.

I wait for a third sortie and, at one point
in the road taken by the Ants, rub the ground
with some handfuls of freshly-gathered mint.
I cover the track, a little farther on, with the
leaves of the same plant. The Ants, on their
return, cross the section over which the mint
was rubbed without apparently giving it a
thought; they hesitate in front of the section
heaped up with leaves and then go straight
on.

After these two experiments, first with the
torrent of water which washes away all trace
of smell from the ground and then with the
mint which changes the smell, I think that we
are no longer at liberty to quote scent as the
guide of the Ants that return to the nest by
the road which they took at starting. Further
tests will tell us more about it.

Without interfering with the soil, I now
lay across the track some large sheets of
144

The Red Ants

paper, newspapers, keeping them in position
with a few small stones. In front of this car-
pet, which completely alters the appearance
of the road, without removing any sort of
scent that it may possess, the Ants hesitate
even longer than before any of my other
snares, including the torrent. They are com-
pelled to make manifold attempts, reconnais-
sances to right and left, forward movements
and repeated retreats, before venturing alto-
gether into the unknown zone. The paper
straits are crossed at last and the march re-
sumed as usual.

Another ambush awaits the Amazons some
distance farther on. I have divided the track
by a thin layer of yellow sand, the ground
itself being grey. This change of colour alone
is enough for a moment to disconcert the
Ants, who again hesitate in the same way,
though not for so long, as they did before the
paper. Eventually, this obstacle is overcome
like the others.

As 'neither the stretch of sand nor the
stretch of paper got rid of any scented effluvia
with which the trail may have been impreg-
nated, it is patent that, as the Ants hesitated
and stopped in the same way as before, they
145

The Mason-bees

find their way not by sense of smell, but really
land truly by sense of sight; for, every time
that I alter the appearance of the track in
any way whatever — whether by my destruc-
tive broom, my streaming water, my green
mint, my paper carpet or my golden sand —
the returning column calls a halt, hesitates
and attempts to account for the changes that
have taken place. Yes, it is sight, but a very
dull sight, whose horizon is altered by the
shifting of a few bits of gravel. To this short
sight, a strip of paper, a bed of mint-leaves,
a layer of yellow sand, a stream of water, a
furrow made by the broom, or even lesser
modifications are enough to transform the
landscape; and the regiment, eager to reach
home as fast as it can with its loot, halts un-
easily on beholding this unfamiliar scenery.
If the doubtful zones are at length passed, it
is due to the fact that fresh attempts are con-
stantly being made to cross the doctored strips
and that at last a few Ants recognize well-
known spots beyond them. The others, rely-
ing on their clearer-sighted sisters, follow.

Sight would not be enough, if the Amazon
had not also at her service a correct memory
for places. The memory of an Ant 1 What
146

The Red Ants

can that be? In what does it resemble ours?
I have no answers to these questions; but a
few words will enable me to prove that the
insect has a very exact and persistent recollec-
tion of places which it has once visited. Here
is something which I have often witnessed.
It sometimes happens that the plundered Ant-
hill offers the Amazons a richer spoil than
the invading column is able to carry away.
Or, again, the region visited is rich in Ant-
hills. Another raid is necessary, to exploit
the site thoroughly. In such cases, a second
expedition takes place, sometimes on the next
day, sometimes two or three days later. This
time, the column does no reconnoitring on
the way : it goes straight to the spot known to
abound in nymphs and travels by the identical
path which it followed before. It has some-
times happened that I have marked with small
stones, for a distance of twenty yards, the
road pursued a couple of days earlier and
have then found the Amazons proceeding by
the same route, stone by stone :

"They will go first here and then there,"
I said, according to the position of the guide-
stones.

And they would, in fact, go first here and

147

The Mason-bees

then there, skirting my line of pebbles, with-
out any noticeable deviation.

Can one believe that odoriferous emana-
tions diffused along the route are going to last
for several days? No one would dare to
suggest it. It must, therefore, be sight that
directs the Amazons, sight assisted by its mem-
ory for places. And this memory is tenacious
enough to retain the impression until the next
day and later; it is scrupulously faithful, for
it guides the column by the same path as on
the day before, across the thousand Irregulari-
ties of the ground.

How will the Amazon behave when the lo-
cality is unknown to her? Apart from topo-
graphical memory, which cannot serve her
here, the region in which I imagine her being
still unexplored, does the Ant possess the
Mason-bee's sense of direction, at least within
modest limits, and is she able thus to regain
her Ant-hill or her marching column?

The different parts of the garden are not
all visited by the marauding legions to the
same extent : the north side is exploited by
preference, doubtless because the forays in
that direction are more productive. The
Amazons, therefore, generally direct their
148

The Red Ants

troops north of their barracks; I seldom see
them in the south. This part of the garden
is, if not wholly unknown, at least much less
familiar to them than the other. Having said
that, let us observe the conduct of the strayed
Ant.

I take up my position near the Ant-hill;
and, when the column returns from the slave-
raid, I force an Ant to step on a leaf which I
hold out to her. Without touching her, I
carry her two or three paces away from her
regiment: no more than that, but in a south-
erly direction. It is enough to put her astray^
to make her lose her bearings entirely. I see
the Amazon, now replaced on the ground,
wander about at random, still, I need hardly
say, with her booty in her mandibles; I see
her hurry away from her comrades, thinking
that she is rejoining them; I see her retrace
her steps, turn aside again, try to the right,
try to the left and grope in a host of direc-
tions, without succeeding in finding her where-
abouts. The pugnacious, strong-jawed slave-
hunter is utterly lost two steps away from her
party. I have in mind certain strays who,
after half an hour's searching, had not suc-
ceeded in recovering the route and were go-^
149

The Mason-bees

ing farther and farther from it, still carrying
the nymph in their teeth. What became of
them? What did they do with their spoil?
I had not the patience to follow those dull-
witted marauders to the end.

Let us repeat the experiment, but place
the Amazon to the north. After more or less
prolonged hesitations, after a search now
in this direction, now in that, the Ant suc-
ceeds in finding her column. She knows the
locality.

Here, of a surety, is a Hymenopteron de-
prived of that sense of direction which other
Hymenoptera enjoy. She has in her favour
a memory for places and nothing more. A
deviation amounting to two or three of our
strides is enough to make her lose her way
and to keep her from returning to her people,
whereas miles across unknown country will
not foil the Mason-bee. I expressed my sur-
prise, just now, that man was deprived of 3
wonderful sense wherewith certain animals are
endowed. The enormous distance between
the two things compared might furnish mat-
ter for discussion. In the present case, the
distance no longer exists : we have to do with
two insects very near akin, two Hymenoptera.
150

The Red Ants

Why, if they issue from the same mould, has
one a sense which the other has not, an ad«
ditional sense, constituting a much more over-
powering factor than the structural details?
I will wait until the evolutionists condescend
to give me a valid reason.

To return to this memory for places whose
tenacity and fidelity I have just recognized:
to what degree does it consent to retain im-
pressions? Does the Amazon require re-
peated journeys in order to learn her geogra-
phy, or is a single expedition enough for
her? Are the line followed and the places
visited engraved on her memory from the
first? The Red Ant does not lend herself to
the tests that might furnish the reply: the ex-
perimenter is unable to decide whether the
path followed by the expeditionary column
is being covered for the first time, nor is it in
his power to compel the legion to adopt this
or that different road. When the Amazons
go out to plunder the Ant-hills, they take the
direction which they please; and we are not
allowed to interfere with their march. Let
us turn to other Hymenoptera for informa-
tion.

I select the Pompili, whose habits we shall
151

The Mason-bees

study in detail in a later chapter/ They are
hunters of Spiders and diggers of burrows.
The game, the food of the coming larva, is
first caught and paralyzed; the home is ex-
cavated afterwards. As the heavy prey would
be a grave encumbrance to the Wasp in search
of a convenient site, the Spider is placed high
up, on a tuft of grass or brushwood, out of the
reach of marauders, especially Ants, who
might damage the precious morsel in the law-
ful owner's absence. After fixing her booty
on the verdant pinnacle, the Pompilus casts
around for a favourable spot and digs her
burrow. During the process of excavation,
she returns from time to time to her Spider;
she nibbles at the prize, feels it, touches here
and there, as though taking stock of its plump-
ness and congratulating herself on the plenti-
ful provender; then she returns to her bur-
row and goes on digging. Should anything
alarm or distress her, she does not merely in-
spect her Spider: she also brings her a little
closer to her work-yard, but never fails to
lay heron the top of a tuft of verdure. These

^For the Wasp known as the Pompilus, or Ringed
Calicurgus, cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap,
xii. — Translator's Note.

152

The Red Ants

are the manoeuvres of which I can avail myself
to gauge the elasticity of the Wasp's memory.
While the Pompilus is at work upon the
burrow, I seize the prey and place it in an ex-
posed spot, half a yard away from its original
position. The Pompilus soon leaves the hole
to enquire after her booty and goes straight
to the spot where she left it. This sureness
of direction, this faithful memory for places
can be explained by repeated previous visits.
I know nothing of what has happened before-
hand. Let us take no notice of this first ex-
pedition; the others will be more conclusive.
For the moment, the Pompilus, without the
least hesitation, finds the tuft of grass whereon
her prey was lying. Then come marches and
counter-marches upon that tuft, minute ex-
plorations and frequent returns to the exact
spot where the Spider was deposited. At last,
convinced that the prize is no longer there, the
W^asp makes a leisurely survey of the neigh-
bourhood, feeling the ground with her
antennae as she goes. The Spider is descried
in the exposed spot where I had pl^ed her.
Surprise on the part of the Pompilus, who
goes forward and then suddenly steps back
with a start :

153

The Mason-bees

"Is it alive?" she seems to ask. "Is It
dead? Is it really my Spider? Let us be
wary!"

The hesitation does not last long : the hunt-
ress grabs her victim, drags her backwards
and places her, still high up, on a second tuft
of herbage, two or three steps away from
the first. She then goes back to the burrow
and digs for a while. For the second time, I
remove the Spider and lay her at some dis-
tance, on the bare ground. This is the mo-
ment to judge of the Wasp's memory. Two
tufts of grass have served as temporary
resting-places for the game. The first, to
which she returned with such precision, the
Wasp may have learnt to know by a more or
less thorough examination, by reiterated visits
that escaped my eye ; but the second has cert-
ainly made but a slight impression on her
memory. She adopted it without any studied
choice; she stopped there just long enough to
hoist her Spider to the top; she saw it for
the first time and saw it hurriedly, in passing.
Is that rapid glance enough to provide an
exact recollection? Besides, there are now two
localities to be muddled in the insect's mem-
ory: the first shelf may easily be confused
154

The Red Ants

with the second. To which will the Pompilus
betake herself?

.We shall soon find out: here she comes,
leaving the burrow to pay a fresh visit to the
Spider. She runs straight to the second tuft,
where she hunts about for a long time for
her absent.prey. She knows that it was there,
when last seen, and no elsewhere; she persists
in looking for it there and does not once think
of going back to the first perch. The first
tuft of grass no longer counts; the second
alone interests her. And then the search in
the neighbourhood begins again.

On finding her game on the bare spot where
I myself have placed it, the Pompilus quickly
deposits the Spider on a third tuft of grass;
and the experiment is renewed. This time,
the Pompilus hurries to the third tuft when
she comes to look after her Spider; she hur-
ries to it without hesitation, without confusing
it in any way with the first two, which she
scorns to visit, so sure is her memory. I do
the same thing a couple of times more; and
the insect always returns to the last perch,
without troubling about the others. I stand
amazed at the memory of that pigmy. She
need but catch a single hurried glimpse of a
155

The Mason-bees

spot that differs In no wise from a host of
others in order to remember it quite well,
notwithstanding the fact that, as a miner re-
lentlessly pursuing her underground labours,
she has other matters to occupy her mind.
Could our own memory always vie with Hers?
It is very doubtful. Allow the Red Ant the
same sort of memory; and her peregrinations,
her returns to the nest by the same road are
no longer difficult to explain.

Tests of this kind have furnished me with
some other results worthy of mention. When
convinced, by untiring explorations, that her
prey is no longer on the tuft where she laid
It, the Pompilus, as we were saying, looks for
It in the neighbourhood and finds It pretty
easily, for I am careful to put It In an ex-
posed place. Let us Increase the difficulty to
some extent. I dig the tip of my finger into
the ground and lay the Spider In the little hole
thus obtained, covering her with a tiny leaf.
Now the Wasp, while In quest of her lost
prey, happens to walk over this leaf, to pass
It again and again without suspecting that
the Spider lies beneath, for she goes and con-
tinues her vain search farther off. Her guide,
therefore, is not scent, but sight. Neverthe-
is6

The Red Ants

less, she Is constantly feeling the ground with
her antennse. What can be the function of
those organs ? I do not know, although I as-
sert that they are not olfactory organs. The
Ammophila, in search of her Grey Worm, had
already led me to make the same assertion;
I now obtain an experimental proof which
seems to me decisive. I would add that the
Pompilus has very short sight: often, she
passes within a couple of inches of her Spider
without seeing her.

157

CHAPTER VII

SOME REFLECTIONS UPON INSECT PSY-
CHOLOGY

THE laudator tempor'is acti is out of fa-
vour just now: the world Is on the
move. Yes, but sometimes it moves back-
wards. When I was a boy, our twopenny
textbooks told us that man was a reasoning
animal; nowadays, there are learned volumes
to prove to us that human reason is but a
higher rung in the ladder whose foot reaches
down to the bottommost depths of animal
life. There is the greater and the lesser;
there are all the intermediary rounds; but no-
where does it break off and start afresh. It
begins with zero in the glair of a cell and
ascends until we come to the mighty brain of
a Newton. The noble faculty of which we
were so proud is a zoological attribute. All
have a larger or smaller share of it, from the
live atom to the anthropoid ape, that hideous
caricature of man.

It always struck me that those who held
158

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

this levelling-theory made facts say more than
they really meant ; it struck me that, in order
to obtain their plain, they were lowering the
mountain-peak, man, and elevating the valley,
the animal. Now this levelling of theirs
needed proofs, to my mind; and, as I found
none in their books, or at any rate only doubt-
ful and highly debatable ones, I did my own
observing, in order to arrive at a definite con-
viction; I sought; I experimented.

To speak with any certainty, it behoves us
not to go beyond what we really know.^ I am
beginning to have a passable acquaintance
with insects, after spending some forty years
in their company. Let us question the insect,
then: not the first that comes along, but the
most gifted, the Hymenopteron. I am giving
my opponents every advantage. Where will
they find a creature more richly endowed with
talent? It would seem as though, in creating
it, nature had delighted in bestowing the great-
est amount of industry upon the smallest body
of matter. Can the bird, wonderful architect
that it is, compare its work with that master-
piece of higher geometry, the edifice of the
Bee? The Hymenopteron rivals man him-
self. We build towns, the Bee erects cities;
159

The Mason-bees

we have servants, the Ant has hers; we rear
domestic animals, she rears her sugar-yielding
insects; we herd cattle, she herds her milch-
cows, the Aphides; wc have abolished slavery,
whereas she continues her nigger-traffic.

Well, does this superior, this privileged
being reason? Reader, do not smile: this Is
a most serious matter, well worthy of our con-
sideration. To devote our attention to ani-
mals is to plunge at once into the vexed quest-
ion of who we are and whence we come.
What, then, passes in that little Hymenop-
teron brain? Has it faculties akin to ours,
has it the power of thought? What a pro-
blem, if we could only solve it; what a chapter
of psychology, if we could only write it ! But,
at our very first questionings, the mysterious
will rise up, impenetrable: we may be con-
vinced of that. We are incapable of knowing
ourselves; what will it be if we try to fathom
the intellect of others? Let us be content if
we succeed in gleaning a few grains of truth.

What is reason? Philosophy would give
us learned definitions. Let us be modest and
keep to the simplest : we are only treating of
animals. Reason is the faculty that connects
the effect with its cause and directs the act by
i6o

Reflections upon Insect Psychology-
conforming it to the needs of the accidental.
Within these limits, are animals capable of
reasoning? Are they able to connect a "be-
cause" with a "why" and afterwards to regu-
late their behaviour accordingly? Are they
able to change their line of conduct when
faced with an emergency?

History has but few data likely to be of use
to us here; and those which we find scattered
in various authors are seldom able to with-
stand a severe examination. One of the most
remarkable of which I know is supplied by
Erasmus Darwin, in his book entitled Zoo-
nom'ia. It tells of a Wasp that has just caught
and killed a big Fly. The wind is blowing,
and the huntress, hampered in her flight by
the great area presented by her prize, alights
on the ground to amputate the abdomen, the
head and the wings; she flies away, carrying
with her only the thorax, which gives less hold
to the wind. If we keep to the bald facts, this
does, I admit, give a semblance of reason.
The Wasp appears to grasp the relation be-
tween cause and effect. The effect is the re-
sistance experienced in the flight; the cause is
the dimensions of the prey contending with
the air. Hence the logical conclusion: those
i6i

The Mason-bees

dimensions must be decreased; the abdomen,
the head and, above all, the wings must be
chopped off; and the resistance will be les-
sened.^

But does this concatenation of Ideas, rudi-
mentary though It be, really take place within
the insect's brain ? I am convinced of the con-

^I would gladly, if I were able, cancel some rather
hasty lines which I allowed myself to pen in the first vol*
ume of these Souvenirs; but scripta manent and all that
I can do is to make amends now, in this note, for the
error into which I fell. Relying on Lacordaire, who
quotes this instance from Erasmus Darwin in his own
Introduction a I'entomologie, I believed that a Sphex was
given as the heroine of the story. How could I do other-
wise, not having the original text in front of me? How
could I suspect that an entomologist of Lacordaire's
standing should be capable of such a blunder as to substi-
tute a Sphex for a Common Wasp? Great was my per-
plexity, in the face of this evidence! A Sphex capturing
a Fly was an impossibility; and I blamed the British
scientist accordingly. But what insect was it that Eras-
mus Darwin saw? Calling logic to my aid, I declared
that it was a Wasp; and I could not have hit the mark
more truly. Charles Darwin, in fact, informed me after-
wards that his grandfather wrote, "a Wasp," in his
Zoonomia. Though the correction did credit to my intel-
ligence, I none the less deeply regretted my mistake, for
I had uttered suspicions of the observer's powers of
discernment, unjust suspicions which the translator's in-
accuracy led me into entertaining. May this note serve to
mitigate the harshness of the strictures provoked by my
overtaxed credulity. I do not scruple to attack ideas
which I consider false; but Heaven forfend that I should
ever attack those who uphold them! — Author's Note.

162

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

trary; and my proofs are unanswerable. In
the first volume of these Souvenirs,^ I demon-
strated by experiment that Erasmus Darwin's
Wasp was but obeying her instinct, which is
to cut up the captured game and to keep only
the most nourishing part, the thorax. Whethet
the day be perfectly calm or whether the
wind blow, whether she be in the shelter of a
dense thicket or in the open, I see the Wasp
proceed to separate the succulent from the
tough; I see her reject the legs, the wings, the
head and the abdomen, retaining only the
breast as pap for her larvas. Then what value
has this dissection as an argument in favour
of the insect's reasoning-powers when the
wind blows? It has no value at all, for it
would take place just the same in absolutely
calm weather. Erasmus Darwin jumped too
quickly to his conclusion, which was the out-
come of his mental bias and not of the logic
of things. If he had first enquired into the
Wasp's habits, he would not have brought for-
ward as a serious argument an incident which
had no connection with the important question
of animal reason.

^Cf. Insect Life: chap. ix. — Translator's Note.
163

The Mason-bees

I have reverted to this case to show the
difficulties that beset the mian who confines
himself to casual observations, however care-
fully carried out. One should never rely upon
a lucky chance, which may not occur again.
We must multiply our observations, check
them one with the other; we must create inci-
dents, looking into preceding ones, finding out
succeeding ones and working out the relation
between them all : then and not till then, with
extreme caution, are we entitled to express a
few views worthy of credence. Nowhere do
I find data collected under such conditions; for
which reason, however much I might wish it, It
is impossible for me to bring the evidence of
others in support of the few conclusions which
I myself have formed.

My Mason-bees, with their nests hanging
on the walls of the arch which I have men-
tioned, lent themselves to continuous experi-
ment better than any other Hymenopteron. I
had them there, at my house, under my eyes,
at all hours of the day, as long as I wished.
I was free to follow their actions in full detail
and to carry out successfully any experiment,
however long. Moreover, their numbers al-
lowed me to repeat my attempts until I was
1^4

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

perfectly convinced. The Mason-bees, there*,
fore, shall supply me with the materials for
this chapter also.

A few words, before I begin, about the
works. The Mason-bee of the Sheds utilizes,
first of all, the old galleries of the clay nest, a
part of which she good-naturedly abandons to
two Osmiae, her free tenants: the Three-
horned Osmia and Latreille's Osmia. These
old corridors, which save labour, are in great
demand; but there are not many vacant, as the
more precocious Osmiae have already taken
possession of most of them; and therefore the
building of new cells soon begins. These
cells are cemented to the surface of the nest,
which thus increases in thickness every year.
The edifice of cells is not built all at once:
mortar and honey alternate repeatedly. The
masonry starts with a sort of little swallow's
nest, a half-cup or thimble, whose circumfer-
ence Is completed by the wall against which it
rests. Picture the cup of an acorn cut in two
and stuck to the surface of the nest : there you
have the receptacle in a stage sufficiently ad-
vanced to take a first Instalment of honey.

The Bee thereupon leaves the mortar and
busies herself with harvesting. After a few
i6s

The Mason-bees

foraging-trips, the work of building is re-
sumed ; and some new rows of bricks raise the
edge of the basin, which becomes capable of
receiving a larger stock of provisions. Then
comes another change of business : the mason
once more becomes a harvester. A little later,
the harvester is again a mason; and these al-
ternations continue until the cell is of the regu-
lation height and holds the amount of honey
required for the larva. Thus come, turn and
turn about, more or less numerous according
to the occupation in hand, journeys to the dry
and barren path, where the cement is gathered
and mixed, and journeys to the flowers, where
the Bee's crop is crammed with honey and her
belly powdered with pollen.

At last comes the time for laying. We see
the Bee arrive with a pellet of mortar. She
gives a glance at the cell to enquire if every-
thing is in order ; she inserts her abdomen ; and
the egg is laid. Then and there the mother
seals up the home: with her pellet of cement
she closes the orifice and manages so well with
the material that the lid receives its perma-
nent form at this first sitting; It has only to be
thickened and strengthened with fresh layers,
a work which is less urgent and will be done
i66

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

by and by. What does appear to be an urgent
necessity is the closing of the cell, immediately
after the egg has been religiously deposited
therein, so that there may be no danger from
evilly-disposed visitors during the mother's
absence.

The Bee must have serious reasons for
thus hurrying on the closing of the cell.
What would happen if, after laying her egg,
she left the house open and went to the
cement-pit to fetch the wherewithal to block
the door? Some thief might drop in and sub-
stitute her own egg for the Mason-bee's. We
shall see that our suspicions are not uncalled-
for. One thing is certain, that the Mason
never lays without having in her mandibles
the pellet of mortar required for the imme-
diate construction of the lid of the nest. The
precious egg must not for a single instant re-
main exposed to the cupidity of marauders.

To these particulars I will add a few ge-
neral observations which will make what fol-
lows easier to understand. So long as its cir-
cumstances are normal, the insect's actions are
calculated most rationally in view of the ob-
ject to be attained. What could be more logi-
cal, for instance, than the devices employed by
167

The Mason-bees

the Hunting-wasp when paralyzing her prey'-
so that it may keep fresh for her larva, while
in no wise imperilling that larva's safety? It
is preeminently rational; we ourselves could
think of nothing better; and yet the insect's
action is not prompted by reason. If it
thought out its surgery, it would be our su-
perior. It will never occur to anybody that
the creature is able, in the smallest degree, to
account for its skilful vivisections. There-
fore, so long as it does not depart from the
path mapped out for it, the insect can perform
the most sagacious actions without entitling
us in the least to attribute these to the dictates
of reason.

What would happen in an emergency? Here
we must distinguish carefully between two
classes of emergency, or we shall be liable to
grievous error. First, in accidents occurring
in the course of the insect's occupation at the
moment. In these circumstances, the creature
is capable of remedying the accident; it con-
tinues, under a similar form, its actual task;
it remains, in short, in the same psychic con-
dition. In the second case, the accident is con-

^Cf. Insect Life: chaps, iii. to xii. and xv. to xvii.— •
Translator's Note.

l68

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

nected with a more remote occupation; it re-
lates to a completed task with which, under
normal conditions, the insect is no longer con-
cerned. To meet this emergency, the creature
would have to retrace its psychic course; it
would have to do all over again what it has
just finished, before turning its attention to
anything else. Is the insect capable of this?
Will it be able to leave the present and return
to the past ? Will it decide to hark back to a
task that is much more pressing than the one
on which it is engaged ? If it did all this, then
we should really have evidence of a modicum
of reason. The question shall be settled by
experiment.

We will begin by taking a few Incidents
that come under the first heading. A Mason-
bee has finished the first layer of the covering
of the cell. She has gone In search of a sec-
ond pellet of mortar wherewith to strengthen
her work. In her absence, I prick the lid with
a needle and widen the hole thus made, until
It Is half the size of the opening. The insect
returns and repairs the damage. It was origin-
ally engaged on the lid and Is merely con-
tinuing its work In mending that lid.

A second is still at her first row of bricks.
169

The Mason-bees

The cell as yet is no more than a shallow cup,
containing no provisions. I make a big hole
in the bottom of the cup and the Bee hastens
to stop the breach. She was busy building
and turned aside a moment to do more build-
ing. Her repairs are the continuation of the
work on which she was engaged.

A third has laid her egg and closed the cell.
While she is gone in search of a fresh supply
of cement to strengthen the door, I make a
large aperture immediately below the lid, too
high up to allow the honey to escape. The in^
sect, on arriving with its mortar intended for
a different task, sees its broken jar and soon
puts the damage right. I have rarely wit-
nessed such a sensible performance. Never-
theless, all things considered, let us not be too
lavish of our praises. The insect was busy
closing up. On its return, it sees a crack,
representing in Its eyes a bad joint which it
had overlooked; It completes its actual task by
improving the joint.

The conclusion to be drawn from these
three instances, which I select from a large
number of others, more or less similar, is that
the insect is able to cope with emergencies,
provided that the new action be not outside
170

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

the course of Its actual work at the moment.
Shall we say then that reason directs It? Why
should we? The Insect persists In the same
psychic course, It continues Its action, It does
what It was doing before. It corrects what to
it appears but a careless flaw In the work of
the moment.

Here, moreover, is something which would
change our estimate entirely, If It ever oc-
curred to us to look upon these repaired
breaches as a work dictated by reason. Let
us turn to the second class of emergency re-
ferred to above : let us imagine, first, cells simi-
lar to those in the second experiment, that is
to say, only half-finished, in the form of a
shallow cup, but already containing honey.
I make a hole in the bottom, through which
the provisions ooze and run to waste. Their
owners are harvesting. Let us imagine, on
the other hand, cells very nearly finished and
almost completely provisioned. I perforate
the bottom In the same way and let out the
honey, which drips through gradually. The
owners of these are building.

Judging by what has gone before, the
reader will perhaps expect to see immediate
repairs, urgent repairs, for the safety of the
171

The Mason-bees

future larva Is at stake. Let him dismiss any
such illusion: more and more journeys are un-
dertaken, now in quest of food, now in quest
of mortar; but not one of the Mason-bees
troubles about the disastrous breach. The
harvester goes on hai'vesting; the busy brick-
layer proceeds with her next row of bricks, as
though nothing out of the way had happened.
Lastly, if the injured cells are high enough
and contain enough provisions, the Bee lays
her eggs, puts a door to the house and passes
on to another house, without doing aught to
remedy the leakage of the honey. Two or
three days later, those cells have lost all their
contents, which now form a long trail on the
surface of the nest.

Is it through lack of intelligence that the
Bee allows her honey to go to waste? May
it not rather be through helplessness? It
might happen that the sort of mortar which
the mason has at her disposal will not set on
the edges of a hole that is sticky with honey.
The honey may prevent the cement from ad-
justing itself to the orifice, in which case the
insect's inertness would merely be resignation
to an irreparable evil. Let us look into the
matter before drawing Inferences. With my
172

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

forceps, I deprive the Bee of her pellet of
mortar and apply It to the hole whence the
honey is escaping. My attempt at repairing
meets with the fullest success, though I do not
pretend to compete with the Mason In dex-
terity. For a piece of work done by a man's
hand It Is quite creditable. My dab of mor-
tar fits nicely Into the mutilated wall ; It hard-
ens as usual; and the escape of honey ceases.
This Is quite satisfactory. What would It be
had the work been done by the Insect,
equipped with Its tools of exquisite precision?
When the Mason-bee refrains, therefore, this
is not due to helplessness on her part, nor to
any defect In the material employed.

Another objection presents Itself. We are
going too far perhaps In admitting this conca-
tenation of Ideas In the Insect's mind, In ex-
pecting It to argue that the honey Is running
away because the cell has a hole In It and that
to save It from being wasted the hole must be
stopped. So much logic perhaps exceeds the
powers of its poor little brain. Then, again,
the hole Is not seen; It Is hidden by the honey
trickling through. The cause of that stream
of honey is an unknown cause; and to trace
the loss of the liquid home to that cause, to
173

The Mason-bees

the hole In the receptacle, Is too lofty a piece
of reasoning for the Insect.

A cell In the rudimentary cup-stage and con-
taining no provisions has a hole, three or four
millimetres^ wide, made in it at the bottom.
A few moments later, this orifice Is stopped by
the Mason. We have already witnessed a
similar patching. The insect, having finished,
starts foraging. I reopen the hole at the same
place. The pollen runs through the aperture
and falls to the ground as the Bee is rubbing
off her first load in the cell. The damage Is
undoubtedly observed. When plunging her
head into the cup to take stock of what she
has stored, the Bee puts her antennae into the
artificial hole: she sounds it, she explores it,
she cannot fail to perceive It.

I see the two feelers quivering outside the
hole. The insect notices the breach in the
wall : that is certain. It flies off. Will It bring
back mortar from Its present journey to repair
the injured jar even as it did but a few
minutes ago?

Not at all. It returns with provisions, It
disgorges its honey, it rubs off its pollen, it

i.ii to .15 inch. — Translator's Note.
174

Reflections upon Insect Psychology-
mixes the material. The sticky and almost
solid mass fills up the opening and oozes
through with difficulty. I roll a spill of paper
and free the hole, which remains open and
shows daylight clearly In both directions. I
sweep the place clear over and over again,
whenever it becomes necessary because new
provisions are brought; I clean the opening
sometimes in the Bee's absence, sometimes in
her presence, while she Is busy mixing her
paste. The unusual happenings in the ware-
house plundered from below cannot escape her
any more than the ever-open breach at the
bottom of the cell. Nevertheless, for three
consecutive hours, I witness this strange sight :
the Bee, full of active zeal for the task in
hand, omits to plug this vessel of the Dan-
aides. She persists in trying to fill her
cracked receptacle, whence the provisions dis-
appear as soon as stored away. She con-
stantly alternates between mason's and har-
vester's work; she raises the edges of the cell
with fresh rows of bricks; she brings provi-
sions which I continue to abstract, so as to
leave the breach always visible. She makes
thirty-two journeys before my eyes, now for
mortar, now for honey, and not once does she
175

The Mason-bees

bethink herself of stopping the leakage at the
bottom of her jar.

At five o'clock in the evening, the works
cease. They are resumed on the morrow.
This time, I neglect to clean out my artificial
orifice and leave the victuals gradually to ooze
out by themselves. At length, the egg is laid
and the door sealed up, without anything be-
ing done by the Bee in the matter of the dis-
astrous breach. And yet to plug the hole
were an easy matter for her : a pellet of her
mortar would suffice. Besides, while the cup
was still empty, did she not instantly close the
hole which I had made? Why are not those
early repairs of hers repeated? It clearly
shows the creature's inability to retrace the
course of its actions, however slightly. At
the time of the first breach, the cup was empty
and the insect was laying the first rows of
bricks. The accident produced through my
agency concerned that part of the work which
occupied the Bee at the actual moment; it was
a flaw in the building, such as can occur na-
turally in new courses of masonry, which have
not had time to harden. In correcting that
flaw, the mason did not go outside her usual
work.

176

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

But, once the provisioning begins, the cup
is finished for good and all; and, come what
may, the insect will not touch it again. The
harvester will go on harvesting, though the
pollen trickle to the ground through the drain.
To plug the hole would imply a change of
occupation of which the insect is incapable for
the moment. It is the honey's turn and not
the mortar's. The rule upon this point is in-
variable. A moment comes, presently, when,
the harvesting is interrupted and the building
resumed. The edifice must be raised a storey
higher. Will the Bee, once more a mason,
mixing fresh cement, now attend to the leak-
age at the bottom? No more than before.
What occupies her at present is the new floor,
whose brickwork would be repaired at once
if it sustained a damage; but the bottom
storey is too old a part of the business, it is
ancient history; and the worker will not put
a further touch to it, even though it be in
serious danger.

For the rest, the present and the following
storeys will all have the same fate. Carefully
watched by the insect as long as they are in
process of building, they are forgotten and
allowed to go to ruin once they are actually
177

The Mason-bees

built. Here is a striking instance: in a cell
which has attained its full height, I make a
window, almost as large as the natural open-
ing, and place it about half-way up, above the
honey. The Bee brings provisions for some
time longer and then lays her egg. Through
my big window, I see the egg deposited on the
victuals. The insect next works at the cover,
to which it gives the finishing touches with a
series of little taps, administered with infinite
care, while the breach remains yawning. On
the lid, it scrupulously stops up every pore that
could admit so much as an atom ; but it leaves
the great opening that places the house at the
mercy of the first-comer. It goes to that
breach repeatedly, puts in its head, examines
it, explores it with its antennae, nibbles the
edges of it. And that is all. The mutilated
cell shall stay as it is, with never a dab of mor-
tar. The threatened part dates too far back
for the Bee to think of troubling about it.

I have said enough, I think, to show the in-
sect's mental incapacity in the presence of the
accidental. This incapacity is confirmed by
renewing the test, an essential condition of all
good experiments ; therefore my notes are full
of examples similar to the one which I have
178

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

just described. To relate them would be mere
repetition; I pass them over for the sake of
brevity.

The renewal of a test Is not sufficient: we
must also vary our test. Let us, then, examine
the insect's intelligence from another point of
view, that of the introduction of foreign bo-
dies into the cell. The Mason-bee is a house-
keeper of scrupulous cleanliness, as indeed are
all Hymenoptera. Not a spot of dirt is per-
mitted in her honey-pot; not a grain of dust
is tolerated on the surface of her mixture.
And yet, while the jar is open, the precious
•Bee-bread is exposed to accidents. The work-
ers in the cells above may inadvertently drop
a little mortar into the lower cells; the owner
herself, when working at enlarging the jar,
runs the risk of letting a speck of cement fall
Into the provisions. A Gnat, attracted by the
smell, may come and be caught In the honey;
brawls between neighbours who are getting
Into each other's way may send some dust fly-
ing thither. All this refuse has to disappear
and that quickly, lest afterwards the larva"
should find coarse fare under its delicate man-
dibles. Therefore the Mason-bees must be
able to cleanse the cell of any foreign body.
179

The Mason-bees

And, in point of fact, they are well able to do
so.

I place on the surface of the honey five or
six bits of straw a millimetre in length. Great
astonishment on the part of the returning In-
sect. Never before have so many sweepings
accumulated in its warehouse. The Bee picks
out the bits of straw, one by one, to the very
last, and each time goes and gets rid of them
at a distance. The effort is out of all propor-
tion to the work: I see the Bee soar above the
nearest plane-tree, to a height of thirty feet,
and fly away beyond It to rid herself of her
burden, a mere atom. She fears lest she
should litter the place by dropping her bit of
straw on the ground, under the nest. A thing
like that must be carried very far away.

I place upon the honey-paste a Mason-bee*s
egg which I myself saw laid in and adjacent
cell. The Bee picks It out and goes and
throws It away at a distance, like the straws
just now. There are two Inferences to be
drawn from this, both extremely interesting.
In the first place, that precious egg, for whose
future the Bee labours so indefatigably, be-

*.039 inch. — Translator's Note.
1 80

Reflections upon Insect Psychology-
comes a valueless, cumbersome, hateful thing
when it belongs to another. Her own egg is
everything; the egg of her next-door neigh-
bour is nothing. It is flung on the dust-heap
like any bit of rubbish. The individual, so
zealous on behalf of her family, displays an
abominable indifference for the rest of her
kind. Each one for himself. In the second
place, I ask myself, without as yet being able
to find an answer to my question, how certain
parasites go to work to give their larva the
benefit of the provisions accumulated by the
Mason-bee. If they decide to lay their egg
on the victuals of the open cell, the Bee, when
she sees it, will not fail to cast it out; if they
decide to lay after the owner, they cannot do
so, for she blocks up the door as soon as her
laying is done. This curious problem must be
reserved for future investigation.^

Lastly, I stick into the paste a bit of straw
nearly an inch long and standing well out
above the rim of the cell. The insect extracts
it by dint of great efforts, dragging it away
from one side; or else, with the help of its
wings, it drags it from above. It darts away

*Cf. The Life of the Fly: chaps, ii. to iv. ; and several
later chapters in the present volume. — Translator's Note.
l8l

The Mason-bees

with the honey-smeared straw and gets rid of
it at a distance, after flying over the plane-
tree.

This is where things begin to get compli-
cated. I have said that, when the time comes
for laying, the Mason-bee arrives with a pel-
let of mortar wherewith immediately to make
a door to the house. The insect with its front
legs resting on the rim. Inserts Its abdomen in
the cell; It has the mortar ready in Its mouth.
Having laid the egg, it comes out and turns
round to block the door. I wave it away for
a second, at the same time planting my straw
as before, a straw sticking out for nearly a
centimetre.^ What will the Bee do? Will
she, who Is scrupulous In ridding the home of
the least mote of dust, extract this beam,
which would certainly prove the larva's un-
doing by interfering with its growth? She
could, for just now we saw her drag out and
throw away, at a distance, a similar beam.

She could and she doesn't. She closes the
cell, cements the lid, seals up the straw in the
thickness of the mortar. More journeys are
taken, not a few, in search of the cement re-

*,39 inch. — Translator's Note.
182

Reflections upon Insect Psychology

quired to strengthen the cover. Each time,
the mason applies the material with the most
minute care, while giving the straw not a
thought. In this way, I obtain, one after the
other, eight closed cells whose lids are sur-
mounted by my mast, a bit of protruding
straw. What evidence of obtuse Inteljigence !
This result Is deserving of attentive consi-
deration. At the moment when I am Inserting
my beam, the Insect has its mandibles en-
gaged; they are holding the pellet of mortar
Intended for the blocking-operation. As the
extractlng-tool is not free, the extraction does
not take place. I expected to see the Bee re-
linquish her mortar and then proceed to re-
move the encumbrance. A dab of mortar
more or less Is not a serious business. I had
already noticed that it takes my Mason-bees a
journey of three or four minutes to collect one.
The pollen-expeditions last longer, a matter
of ten or fifteen minutes. To drop her pellet,
grab the straw with her mandibles, now disen-
gaged, remove It and gather a fresh supply of
cement would entail a loss of five minutes at
most. The Bee decides differently. She will
not, she cannot relinquish her pellet; and she
uses it. No matter that the larva will perish
183

The Mason-bees

by this untimely trowelhng: the moment has
come to wall up the door; the door is walled
up. Once the mandibles are free, the extrac-
tion could be attempted, at the risk of wreck-
ing the lid. But the Bee does nothing of the
sort: she keeps on fetching mortar; and the
lid is religiously finished.

We might go on to say that, if the Bee were
obliged to depart in quest of fresh mortar
after dropping the first to withdraw the straw,
she would leave the egg unguarded; and that
this would be an extreme measure which the
mother cannot bring herself to adopt. Then
why does she not place the pellet on the rim
of the cell ? The mandibles, now free, would
remove the beam; the pellet would be taken
up again at once ; and everything would go to
perfection. But no: the insect has its mortar
and, come what may, employs it on the work
for which it was intended.

If any one sees a rudiment of reason in
this Hymenopteron intelligence, he has eyes
that are more penetrating than mine. I see
nothing in all this but an invincible persistence
in the act once begun. The cogs have
gripped; and the rest of the wheels must fol-
low. The mandibles are fastened on the pel-
184

Reflections upon Insect Psychology-
let of mortar; and the idea, the wish to un-
fasten them will never occur to the insect un-
til the pellet has fulfilled its purpose. And
here is a still greater absurdity: the plugging
once begun is very carefully finished with fresh
relays of mortar! Exquisite attention is paid
to a closing-up which is henceforth useless; no
attention at all to the dangerous beam. O lit-
tle gleams of reason that are said to enlighten
the animal, you are very near the darkness,
you are naught!

Another and still more eloquent fact will
finally convince whoso may yet be doubting.
The ration of honey stored up in a cell is evi-
dently measured by the needs of the coming
larva. There is neither too much nor too lit-
tle. How does the Bee know when the proper
quantity is reached? The cells are more or
less constant in dimension, but they are not
filled completely, only to about two-thirds of
their height. A large space is therefore left
empty; and the victualler has to judge of the
moment when the surface of the mess has at-
tained the right level. The honey being per-
fectly opaque, its depth is not apparent. I
have to use a sounding-rod, when I want to
gauge the contents of the jar; and I find, on
185

The Mason-bees

the average, that the honey reaches a depth
of ten millimetres/ The Bee has not this re-
source; she has sight, which may enable her to
estimate the full section from the empty sec-
tion. This presupposes the possession of a
somewhat geometric eye, capable of measur-
ing the third of a distance. If the insect did
it by Euclid, that would be very brilliant of it.
What a magnificent proof in favour of its lit-
tle intellect: a Chalicodoma with a geometri-
cian's eye, able to divide a straight line into
three equal parts I This is worth looking into
seriously.

I take five cells, which are only partly pro-
visioned, and empty them of their honey with
a wad of cotton held in my forceps. From
time to time, as the Bee brings new provisions,
I repeat the cleansing-process, sometimes
clearing out the cell entirely, sometimes leav-
ing a thin layer at the bottom. I do not ob-
serve any pronounced hesitation on the part of
my plundered victims, even though they sur-
prise me at the moment when I am draining
the jar; they continue their work with quiet in-
dustry. Sometimes, two or three threads of

1.39 inch. — Translator's Note.
186

Reflections upon Insect Psychology-
cotton remain clinging to the walls of the
cells: the Bees remove them carefully and
dart away to a distance, as usual, to get rid
of them. At last, a little sooner or a little
later, the egg is laid and the lid fastened on.

I break open the five closed cells. In one,
the egg has been laid on three millimetres of
honey ;^ in two, on one millimetre;- and, in
the two others, it is placed on the side of the
receptacle drained of all its contents, or, to be
more accurate, having only the glaze, the var-
nish left by the friction of the honey-covered
cotton.

The inference Is obvious : the Bee does not
judge of the quantity of honey by the eleva-
tion of the surface; she does not reason like
a geometrician, she does not reason at all.
She accumulates so long as she feels within
her the secret Impulse that prompts her to go
on collecting until the victualling Is com-
pleted; she ceases to accumulate when that
impulse Is satisfied. Irrespective of the result,
which In this case happens to be worthless.
No mental faculty, assisted by sight. Informs
her when she has enough, when she has too

^.117 inch. — Translator's Note.
2.039 inch. — Translator's Note.

187

The Mason-bees

little. An instinctive predisposition is her
only guide, an infallible guide under normal
conditions, but hopelessly lost when subjected
to the wiles of the experimenter. Had the
Bee the least glimmer of reason, would she
lay her egg on the third, on the tenth part of
the necessary provender? Would she lay it
in an empty cell? Would she be guilty of
such inconceivable maternal aberration as to
leave her nurseling without nourishment? I
have told the story; let the reader decide.

This instinctive predisposition, which does
not leave the insect free to act and, through
that very fact, saves it from error, bursts forth
under yet another aspect. Let us grant the
Bee as much judgment as you please. Thus
endowed, will she be capable of meting out
the future larva's portion? By no means.
The Bee does not know what that portion is.
There is nothing to tell the materfamilias;
and yet, at her first attempt, she fills the
honey-pot to the requisite depth. True, in her
childhood, she received a similar ration; but
she consumed it in the darkness of a cell; and,
besides, as a grub, she was blind. Sight was
not her informant: it did not tell her the
quantity of the provisions. Did memory, the
i88

Reflections upon Insect Psychology-
memory of the stomach that once digested
them? But digestion took place a year ago;
and, since that distant epoch, the nurseling,
now an adult insect, has changed its shape, its
dwelling, its mode of life. It was a grub; it
is a Bee. Does the actual insect remember
that childhood's meal? No more than we re-
member the sups of milk drawn from our mo-
ther's breast. The Bee, therefore, knows no-
thing of the quantity of provisions needed by
her larva, whether from memory, from ex-
ample or from acquired experience. Then
what guides her when she makes her estimate
with such precision? Judgment and sight
would leave the mother greatly perplexed,
liable to provide too much or not enough. To
instruct her beyond the possibility of a mi-
stake demands a special tendency, an uncon-
scious impulse, an instinct, an inword voice
that dictates the measure to be apportioned.

189

CHAPTER VIII

PARASITES

TN August or September, let us go into some
-■- gorge with bare and sun-scorched sides.
When we find a slope well-baked by the sum-
mer heat, a quiet corner with the temperature
of an oven, we will call a halt : there is a fine
harvest to be gathered there. This tropical
land is the native soil of a host of Wasps and
Bees, some of them busily piling the house-
hold provisions in underground warehouses:
here a stack of Weevils, Locusts or Spiders,
there a whole assortment of Flies, Bees,
Mantes or Caterpillars, while others are stor-
ing up honey in membranous wallets or clay
pots, or else in cottony bags or urns made with
the punched-out disks of leaves.

With the industrious folk who go quietly
about their business, the labourers, masons,
foragers, warehousers, mingles the parasitic
tribe, the prowlers hurrying from one home
to the next, lying in wait at the doors, watch-
190

Parasites

ing for a favourable opportunity to settle
their family at the expense of others.

A heart-rending struggle, in truth, is that
which rules the insect world and in a measure
our own world too. No sooner has a worker,
by dint of exhausting labour, amassed a for-
tune for his children than the non-producers
come hastening up to contend for its possess-
ion. To one who amasses there are some-
times five, six or more bent upon his ruin; and
often it ends not merely in robbery but in
black murder. The worker's family, the ob-
ject of so much care, for whom that home
was built and those provisions stored, suc-
cumb, devoured by the Intruders, directly the
little bodies have acquired the soft roundness
of youth. Shut up In a cell that is closed on
every side, protected by Its silken covering, the
grub, once its victuals are consumed, sinks
into a profound slumber, during which the
organic changes needed for the future trans-
formation take place. For this new hatching,
which Is to turn a grub into a Bee, for this
general remodelling, the delicacy of which de-
mands absolute repose, all the precautions that
make for safety have been taken.

These precautions will be foiled. The en-
191

The Mason -bees

emy will succeed in penetrating the impreg-
nable fortress ; each foe has his special tactics,
contrived with appalling skill. See, an egg is
inserted by means of a probe beside the torpid
larva; or else, in the absence of such an imple-
ment, an infinitesimal grub, an atom, comes
creeping and crawling, slips in and reaches the
sleeper, who will never wake again, already a
succulent morsel for her ferocious visitor.
The interloper makes the victim's cell and
cocoon his own cell and his own cocoon; and
next year, instead of the mistress of the house,
there will come from below ground the bandit
who usurped the dwelling and consumed the
occupant.

Look at this one, striped black, white and
red, with the figure of a clumsy, hairy Ant.
She explores the slope on foot, inspects every
nook and corner, spunds the soil with her
antennae. She is a Mutilla, the scourge
of the cradled grubs. The female has no
wings, but, being a Wasp, she carries
a sharp poniard. To novice eyes she
would easily pass for a sort of robust
Ant, distinguished from the common ruck by
her garb of staring motley. The male, wide-
winged and more gracefully shaped, hovers
192

Parasites

incessantly a few inches above the sandy ex-
panse. For hours at a time, on the same spot,
after the manner of the Scolia-wasp he
spies the coming of the females out of
the ground. If our watch be patient
and persevering, we shall see the mother,
after trotting about for a bit, stop some-
where and begin to scratch and dig, finally
laying bare a subterranean gallery, of
which there was nothing to betray the en-
trance ; but she can discern what is invisible to
us. She penetrates into the abode, remains
there for a while and at last reappears to re-
place the rubbish and close the door as it was
at the start. The abominable deed is done:
the Mutilla's egg has been laid in another's
cocoon, beside the slumbering larva on which
the new-born grub will feed.

Here are others, all aglitter with metallic
gleams : gold, emerald, blue and purple. They
are the humming-birds of the insect-world,
the Chi7sis-wasps or Golden Wasps, another
set of exterminators of the larvae overcome
with lethargy in their cocoons. In them, the
atrocious assassin of cradled children lies
hidden under the splendour of the garb. One
of them, half emerald and half pale-pink,
193

The Mason-bees

Parnopes carnea by name, boldly enters the
burrow of Bembex rostrata at the very mo-
ment when the mother Is at home, bringing
a fresh piece of game to her larva, whom she
feeds from day to day. To the elegant crim-
inal, unskilled in navvy's work, this is the one
moment to find the door open. If the mother
were away, the house would be shut up; and
the Golden Wasp, that sneak-thief in royal
robes, could not get in. She enters, therefore,
dwarf as she is, the house of the giantess
whose ruin she is meditating; she makes her
way right to the back, all heedless of the
Bembex, her sting and her powerful jaws.
What cares she that the home is not deserted?
Either unmindful of the danger or paralyzed
with terror, the Bembex mother lets her have
her way.

The unconcern of the invaded is equalled
only by the boldness of the invader. Have
I not seen the Anthophora-bee, at the door to
her dwelling, stand a little to one side and
make room for the Melecta to enter the
honey-stocked cells and substitute her family
for the unhappy parent's? One would think
that they were two friends meeting on the
threshold, one going in, the other out!
194

Parasites

It is written in the book of fate: every-
thing shall happen without impediment in the
burrow of the Bembex and next year, if we
open the cells of that mighty huntress of Gad-
flies, we shall find some which contain a
russet-silk cocoon, the shape of a thimble with
its orifice closed with a flat lid. In this silky
tabernacle, which is protected by the hard
outer shell, is a Parnopes carnea. As for the
grub of the Bembex, that grub which wove
the silk and next encrusted the outer casing
with sand, it has disappeared entirely, all but
the tattered remnants of its skin. Disap-
peared how? The Golden Wasp's grub has
eaten it.

Another of these splendid malefactors is
decked in lapis-lazuli on the thorax and in
Florentine bronze and gold on the abdomen,
with a terminal scarf of azure. The nomen-
clators have christened her Stilhum calens,
Fab. When Eumenes AmadeV- has built on
the rock her agglomeration of dome-shaped
cells, with a casing of little pebbles set in the
plaster, when the store of Caterpillars is con-
sumed and the secluded ones have hung their

*A species of Mason-wasp. — Translator's Note.
i95

The Mason-bees

apartments with silk, we see the Stilbum take
her stand on the inviolable citadel. No doubt
some imperceptible cranny, some defect in the
cement, allows her to insert her ovipositor,
which shoots out like a probe. At any rate,
about the end of the following May, the
Eumenes' chamber contains a cocoon which
again is shaped like a thimble. From this
cocoon comes a Stilbum calens. There is
nothing left of the Eumenes' grub: the
Golden Wasp has gorged herself upon it.

Flies play no small part in this brigandage.
Nor are they the least to be dreaded, weak-
lings though they be, sometimes so feeble that
the collector dare not take them in his fingers
for fear of crushing them. There are some
clad in velvet so extraordinarily delicate that
the least touch rubs it off. They are fluffs of
down almost as frail, in their soft elegance,
as the crystalline edifice of a snowflake before
it touches ground. They are called Bombylii.

With this fragility of structure is combined
an incomparable power of flight. See this
orre, hovering motionless two feet above the
ground. Her wings vibrate so rapidly that
they appear to be in repose. The insect looks
as though it were hung at one point in space
196

Parasites

by some invisible thread. You make a move-
ment; and the Bombylius has disappeared.
You cast your eyes in search of her around
you, far away, judging the distance by the
vigour of her flight. There is nothing here,
nothing there. Then where is she? Close by
you. Look at the point whence she started:
the Bombylius is there again, hovering mo-
tionless. From this aerial observatory, as
quickly recovered as quitted, she inspects the
ground, watching for the favourable moment
to establish her egg at the cost of another
creature's destruction. What does she covet
for her offspring: the honey-cupboard, the
stores of game, the larvae in their transforma-
tion-sleep ? I do not know yet. What I do
know is that her slender legs and her dainty
velvet dress do not allow her to make under-
ground searches. When she has found the
propitious place, suddenly she will swoop
down, lay her egg on the surface in that light-
ning touch with the tip of her abdomen and
straightway fly up again. What I suspect,
■for reasons set forth presently, is that the
grub that comes out of the Bombylius' egg
must, of its own motion, at its own risk and
peril, reach the victuals which the mother
197

The Mason-bees

knows to be close at hand. She has no
strength to do more; and it is for the new-
born grub to make its way into the refectory.

I am better acquainted with the manoeuvres
of certain Tachinae, the tiniest of pale-grey
Flies, who, cowering on the sand in the sun,
in the neighbourhood of a burrow, patiently
await the hour at which to strike the fell
blow. Let a Bembex return from the chase,
with her Gad-fly; a Philanthus, with her Bee;
a Cerceris, with her Weevil; a Tachytes, with
her Locust: straightway the parasites are
there, coming and going, turning and twist-
ing with the Wasp, always at her rear, with-
out allowing themselves to be put off by any
cautious feints. At the moment when the
huntress goes indoors, with her captured game
between her legs, they fling themselves on her
prey, which is on the point of disappearing
under ground, and nimbly lay their eggs
upon it. The thing is done in the twinkling
of an eye: before the threshold is crossed, the
carcase holds the germs of a new set of guests,
who will feed on victuals not amassed for
them and starve the children of the house to
death.

This other, resting on the burning sand, is
198

Parasites

also a member of the Fly tribe; she is an
Anthrax.^ She has wide wings, spread hori-
zontally, half smoked and half transparent.
She wears a dress of velvet, like the Bom-
bylius, her near neighbour in the official regis-
ters; but, though the soft down is similar in
fineness, it is very different in colour. Anthrax
is Greek for coal. It is a happy denomina-
tion, reminding us of the Fly's mourning
livery, a coal-black livery with silver tears.
The same deep mourning garbs those parasitic
Bees, the Crocisas and the Melectae; and these
are the only instances known to me of that
violent opposition of dead black and white.

Nowadays, when men interpret everything
with glorious assurance, when they explain the
Lion's tawny mane as due to the colour of
the African desert, attribute the Tiger's dark
stripes to the streaks of shadow cast by the
bamboos and extricate any number of other
magnificent things with the same facility from
the mists of the unknown, I should not be
sorry to hear what they have to say of the
Melecta, the Crocisa and the Anthrax and of
the origin of their exceptional costume.

*Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap, u.— Translator's Note.
199

The Mason-bees

The word "mimesis" has been invented for
the express purpose of designating the ani-
mal's supposed faculty of adapting itself to
its environment by imitating the objects
around it, at least in the matter of colouring.
We are told that it uses this faculty to baffle
its foes, or else to approach its prey without
alarming it. Finding itself the better for this
dissimulation, a source of prosperity indeed,
each race, sifted by the struggle for life, is
considered to have preserved those best-
endowed with mimetic powers and to have
allowed the others to become extinct, thus
gradually converting into a fixed characteristic
what at first was but a casual acquisition. The
Lark became earth-coloured in order to hide
himself from the eyes of the bird of prey
when pecking in the fields; the Common Liz-
ard adopted a grass-green tint in order to
blend with the foliage of the thickets in which
he lurks; the Cabbage-caterpillar guarded
against the bird's beak by taking the colour
of the plant on which it feeds. And so with
the rest.

In my callow youth, these comparisons
would have interested me : I was just ripe for
that kind of science. In the evenings, on the

200

Parasites

straw of the threshing-floor, we used to talk
of the Dragon, the monster which, to inveigle
people and snap them up with greater cert-
ainty, became indistinguishable from a rock,
the trunk of a tree, a bundle of twigs. Since
those happy days of artless credulity, scepti-
cism has chilled my imagination to some ex-
tent. By way of a parallel with the three
examples which I have quoted, I ask myself
why the White Wagtail, who seeks his food
in the furrows as does the Lark, has a white
shirt-front surmounted by a magnificent black
stock. This dress is one of those most easily
picked out at a distance against the rusty
colours of the soil. Whence comes his neglect
to practice mimesis, "protective mimicry"?
He has every need of it, poor fellow, quite
as much as his companion in the fields!

Why is the Eyed Lizard of Provence as
green as the Common Lizard, considering
that he shuns verdure and chooses as his
haunt, in the bright sunlight, some chink in
the naked rocks where not so much as a tuft
of moss grows? If, to capture his tiny prey,
his brother in the copses and the hedges
thought it necessary to dissemble and conse-
quently to dye his pearl-embroidered coat,

201

The Mason-bees

how comes it that the denizen of the sun-
blistered rocks persists in his blue and green
colouring, which at once betrays him against
the whity-grey stone ? Indifferent to mimicry,
is he the less skilful Beetle-hunter on that
account, is his race degenerating? I have
studied him sufficiently to be able to declare
with positive certainty that he continues to
thrive both in numbers and in vigour.

Why has the Spurge-caterpillar adopted
for its dress the gaudiest colours and those
which contrast_ most with the green of the
leaves which it frequents? Why does it
flaunt its red, black and white in patches
clashing violently with one another? Would
it not be worth its while to follow the exam-
ple of the Cabbage-caterpillar and imitate the
verdure of the plant that feeds it? Has it no
enemies? Of course it has: which of us, ani-
mals and men, has not?

A string of these whys could be extended
indefinitely. It would give me amusement,
did my time permit me, to counter each ex-
ample of protective mimicry with a host of
examples to the contrary. What manner of
law is this which has at least ninety-nine ex-
ceptions in a hundred cases? Poor human

Parasites

nature I There is a deceptive agreement be-
tween a few actual facts and the theory
which we are so foolishly ready to believe;
and straightway we interpret the facts in the
light of the theory. In a speck of the im-
mense unknown we catch a glimpse of a
phantom truth, a shadow, a will-o'-the-wisp;
once the atom is explained, for better or
worse, we imagine that we hold the explana-
tion of the universe and all that it contains;
and we forthwith shout :

"The great law of Nature! Behold the
infallible law!"

Meanwhile, the discordant facts, an in-
numerable host, clamour at the gates of the
law, being unable to gain admittance.

At the door of that infinitely restricted law
clamour the great tribe of Golden Wasps,
whose -dazzling splendour, worthy of the
wealth of Golconda, clashes with the dingy
colour of their haunts. To deceive the eyes
of their bird-tyrants, the Swift, the Swallow,
the Chat and the others, these Chrysis-wasps,
who glow like a carbuncle, like a nugget in
the midst of its dark veinstone, certainly do
not adapt themselves to the sand and the clay
of their downs. The Green Grasshopper, so
203

The Mason-bees

we are told, thought out a plan for gulling
his enemies by identifying himself in colour
with the grass in which he dwells, whereas the
Wasp, so rich in instinct and strategy, allowed
herself to be distanced in the race by the dull-
witted Locust ! Rather than adapt herself as
the other does, she persists in her incredible
splendour, which betrays her from afar to
every insect-eater and in particular to the little
Grey Lizard, who lies hungrily in wait for her
on the old sun-tapestried walls. She remains
ruby, emerald and turquoise amidst her grey
environment; and her race thrives none the
worse.

The enemy that eats you is not the only one
to be deceived; mimesis must also play its
colour-tricks on him whom you have to eat.
See the Tiger in his jungle, see the Praying
Mantis on her green branch.^ Astute mimicry
is even more necessary when the one to be
duped is an amphytrion at whose cost the
parasite's family is to be established. The
Tachlnae seem to declare as much: they are
grey or greyish, of a colour as undecided as

^For the Praying Mantis, cf. Social Life in the Insect
World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by Bernard Miall:
chaps. V to vii. — Translator's Note.

204

Parasites

the dysty soil on which they cower while wait-
ing for the arrival of the huntress laden with
her capture. But they dissemble in vain : the
Bembex, the Philanthus and the others see
them from above, before touching ground;
they recognize them perfectly at a distance,
despite their grey costume. And so they hover
prudently above the burrow and strive, by
sudden feints, to mislead the traitorous little
Fly, who, on her side, knows her business too
well to allow herself to be enticed away or to
leave the spot where the other Is bound to
return. No, a thousand times no: clay-
coloured though they be, the Tachlnae have
no better chance of attaining their ends than a
host of other parasites whose clothing Is not
of grey frieze to match the locality fre-
quented, as witness the glittering Chrysis, or
the Melecta and the Croclsa, with their white
spots on a black ground.

We are also told that, the better to cozen
his amphytrion, the parasite adopts more or
less the same shape and colouring; he turns
himself, in appearance, into a harmless neigh-
bour, a worker belonging to the same guild.
Instance the Psithyrus, who lives at the ex-
pense of the Bumble-bee. But in what. If you
205

The Mason-bees

please, does Parnopes carnea resemble the
Bembex into whose home she penetrates in
her presence? In what does the Melecta re-
semble the Anthophora, who stands aside on
her threshold to let her pass? The difference
of costume is most striking. The Melecta's
deep mourning has naught in common with
the Anthophora's russet coat. The Parnopes'
emerald-and-carmine thorax possesses not the
least feature of resemblance with the
black-and-yellow livery of the Bembex. And
this Chrysis also is a dwarf in comparison
with the ardent Nimrod who goes hunting
Gad-flies.

Besides, what a curious Idea, to make the
parasite's success depend upon a more or less
faithful likeness with the insect to be robbed!
Why, the imitation would have exactly the
opposite effect! With the exception of the
Social Bees, who work at a common task, fail-
ure would be certain, for here, as among man-
kind, two of a trade never agree. An Osmia,
an Anthophora, a Mason-bee had better be
careful not to poke an indiscreet head in at
her neighbour's door: a sound drubbing
would soon recall her to a sense of the pro-
prieties. She might easily find herself with a
206

Parasites

dislocated shoulder or a mangled leg in re-
turn for a simple visit which was perhaps
prompted by no evil intention. Each for her-
self in her own stronghold. But let a para-
site appear, meditating foul play: that's a
very different thing. She can wear the trap-
pings of Harlequin or of a church-beadle; she
can be the Clerus-beetle, in wing-cases of ver-
milion with blue trimmings, or the Dioxys-
bee, with a red scarf across her black abdo-
men, and the mistress of the house will let
her have her way, or, if she become too press-
ing, will drive her off with a mere flick of her
wing. With her, there is no serious fray, no
fierce fight. The bludgeon is reserved for the
friend of the family. Now go and practise
your mimesis in order to receive a welcome
from the Anthophora or the Chalicodoma!
A few hours spent with the Insects them-
selves will turn any one Into a hardened
scoffer at these artless theories.

To sum up, mimesis, in my eyes, is a piece
of childishness. Were I not anxious to remain
polite, I should say that It Is sheer stupidity;
and the word would express my meaning bet-
ter. The variety of combinations in the do-
main of possible things is infinite. It is
207

The Mason-bees

undeniable that, here and there, cases occur
in which the animal harmonizes with sur-
rounding objects. It would even be very
strange if such cases were excluded from
actuality, since everything is possible. But
these rare coincidences are faced, under ex-
actly similar conditions, by inconsistencies so
strongly marked and so numerous that, hav-
ing frequency on their side, they ought, in all
logic, to serve as the basis of the law. Here,
one fact says yes; there, a thousand facts say
no. To which evidence shall we lend an ear?
If we only wish to bolster up a theory, it
would be prudent to listen to neither. The
how and why escapes us; what we dignify
with the pretentious title of a law is but a
way of looking at things with our mind, a
very squint-eyed way, which we adopt for the
requirements of our case. Our would-be laws
contain but an infinitesimal shade of reality;
often Indeed they are but puffed out with vain
imaginings. Such is the law of mimesis, which
explains the Green Grasshopper by the green
leaves in which this Locust settles and is silent
as to the Criocerls, that coral-red Beetle who
lives on the no less green leaves of the lily.
And it is not only a mistaken interpreta-
208

Parasites

tlon: it is a clumsy pitfall in which novices
allow themselves to be caught. Novices, did
I say? The greatest experts themselves fall
into the trap. One of our masters of ento-
mology did me the honour to visit my labora-
tory. I was showing my collection of para-
sites. One of them, clad in black and yellow,
attracted his attention.

"This," said he, "is obviously a parasite of
the Wasps."

Surprised at the statement, I interposed:

"By what signs do you know her?"

"Why look: it's the exact colouring of the
Wasp, a mixture of black and yellow. It is
a most striking case of mimesis."

"Just so ; nevertheless, our black-and-yellow
friend is a parasite of the Chalicodoma of the
Walls, who has nothing in common, either in
shape or colour, with the Wasp. This is a
Leucospis, not one of whom enters the Wasps'
nests."

"Then mimesis . . . ?"

"Mimesis is an illusion which we should
do well to relegate to oblivion."

And, with the evidence in front of him, a
whole series of conclusive examples, my
learned visitor admitted with a good grace
209

The Mason-bees

that his first convictions were based on a most
ludicrous foundation.

A piece of advice to beginners : you will go
wrong a thousand times for once that you are
right, if, when anxious to obtain a premature
sight of the probable habits of an insect, you
take mimesis as your guide. With mimesis
above all, it is wise, when the law says that
a thing is black, first to enquire whether it
does not happen to be white.

Let us go on to more serious subjects and
enquire into parasitism itself, without troub-
ling any longer about the costume of the para-
site. According to etymology, a parasite is
one who eats another's bread, one who lives
on the provisions of others. Entomology
often alters this term from its real meaning.
Thus it describes as parasites the Chrysis, the
Mutilla, the Anthrax, the Leucospis, all of
whom feed their family not on the provisions
amassed by others, but on the very larvae
which have consumed those provisions, their
actual property. When the Tachinae have
succeeded in laying their eggs on the game
warehoused by the Bembex, the burrower's
home Is invaded by real parasites, in the strict
sense of the word. Around the heap of Gad-

Parasites

flies, collected solely for the children of the
house, new guests force their way, numerous
and hungry, and without the least ceremony
plunge into the thick of it. They sit down to
a table that was not laid for them; they eat
side by side with the lawful owner; and this in
such haste that he dies of starvation, though
he is respected by the teeth of the interlopers
who have gorged themselves on his portion.

When the Melecta has substituted her egg
for the Anthophora's, here again we see a
real parasite settling in the usurped cell. The
pile of honey laboriously gathered by the
mother will not even be broken in upon by the
nurseling for which it was intended. Another
will profit by it, with none to say him nay.
Tachinas and Melectse: those are the true
parasites, consumers of others' goods.

Can we say as much of the Chrysis or the
Mutllla? In no wise. The Scoliae, whose
habits are now known to us,^ are certainly not
parasites. No one will accuse them of steal-
ing the food of others. Zealous workers, they
seek and find under ground the fat grubs on

*The habits of the Scolia-wasp have been described
in different essays not yet translated into English.—
Translator's Note.

211

The Mason-bees

which their family will feed. They follow
the chase by virtue of the same quality as the
most renowned hunters, Cerceris, Sphex or
Ammophila; only, instead of removing the
game to a special lair, they leave it where it
is, down in the burrow. Homeless poachers,
they let their venison be consumed on the spot
where it is caught.

In what respect do the Mutilla, the Chrysis,
the Leucospis, the Anthrax and so many others
differ, in their way of living, from the Scolia?
It seems to me, in none. See for yourselves.
By an artifice that varies according to the
mother's talent, their grubs, either in the
germ-stage or newly-born, are brought into
touch with the victim that is to feed them : an
unwounded victim, for most of them are with-
out a sting; a live victim, but steeped in the
torpor of the coming transformations and thus
delivered without defence to the grub that Is
to devour it.

With them, as with the Scoliae, meals are
made on the spot on game legitimately ac-
quired by Indefatigable battues or by patient
stalking In which all the rules have been ob-
served; only, the animal hunted is defenceless
and does not need to be laid low with a dag-

212

Parasites

ger-thrust. To seek and find for one's larder
a torpid prey incapable of resistance is, if you
like, less meritorious than heroically to stab
the strong-jawed Rose-chafer or Rhinoceros
Beetle; but since when has the title of sports-
man been denied to him who blows out the
brains of a harmless Rabbit, instead of wait-
ing without flinching for the furious charge of
the Wild Boar and driving his hunting-knife
into him behind the shoulder? Besides, if the
actual assault i$ without danger, the approach
is attended with a difficulty that increases the
merit of these second-rate poachers. The
coveted game is invisible. It is confined in
the stronghold of a cell and moreover pro-
tected by the surrounding wall of a cocoon.
Of what prowess must not the mother be ca-
pable to determine the exact spot at which it
lies and to lay her egg on its side or at least
close by? For these reasons, I boldly number
the Chrysis, the Mutilla and their rivals
among the hunters and reserve the ignoble
title of parasites for the Tachina, the Melecta,
the Crocisa, the Meloe-beetle, in short, for all
those who feed on the provisions of others.

All things considered, is ignoble the right
epithet to apply to parasitism? No doubt,
213

The Mason-bees

in the human race, the Idler who feeds at
other people's tables is contemptible at all
points; but must the animal bear the burden
of the indignation Inspired by our own vices?
Our parasites, our scurvy parasites, live at
their neighbour's expense: the animal never;
and this changes the whole aspect of the
question. I know of no Instance, not one,
excepting man, of parasites who consume the
provisions hoarded by a worker of the same
species. There may be, here and there, a
few cases of larceny, of casual pillage among
hoarders belonging to the same trade: that I
am quite ready to admit, but it does not affect
things. What would be really serious and
what I formally deny is that, in the same
zoological species, there should be some who
possessed the attribute of living at the ex-
pense of the rest. In vain do I consult my
memory and my notes : my long entomological
career does not furnish me with a solitary
example of such a misdeed as that of an in-
sect leading the life of a parasite upon its
fellows.

When the Challcodoma of the Sheds
works, in her thousands, at her Cyclopean
edifice, each has her own home, a sacred home
214

Parasites

where not one of the tumultuous swarm, ex-
cept the proprietress, dreams of taking a
mouthful of honey. It is as though there
were a neighbourly understanding to respect
the others' rights. Moreover, if some heed-
less one mistakes her cell and as much as
alights on the rim of a cup that does not be-
long to her, forthwith the owner appears,
admonishes her severely and soon calls her
to order. But, if the store of honey is the
estate of some deceased Bee, or of some wan-
derer unduly prolonging her absence, then —
and then alone — a kinswoman seizes upon It.
The goods were waste property, which she
turns to account; and it is a very proper
economy. The other Bees and Wasps be-
have likewise: never, I say never, do we find
among them an idler assiduously planning the
conquest of her neighbour's possessions. No
insect is a parasite on its own species.

What then is parasitism, if one must look
for it among animals of different races? Life
in general is but a vast brigandage. Nature
devours herself; matter is kept alive by pass-
ing from one stomach Into another. At the
banquet of life, each is In turn the guest and
the dish ; the eater of to-day becomes the eaten
215

The Mason-bees

of to-morrow; hodie tibi, eras tnihi. Every-
thing lives on that which lives or has lived;
everything is parasitism. Man is the great
parasite, the unbridled thief of all that is
fit to eat. He steals the milk from the Lamb,
he steals the honey from the children of the
Bee, even as the Melecta pilfers the pottage
of the Anthophora's sons. The two cases
are similiar. Is it the vice of indolence? No,
it is the fierce law which for the life of the
one exacts the death of the other.

In this implacable struggle of devourers
and devoured, of pillagers and pillaged, of
robbers and robbed, the Melecta deserves no
more than we the title of ignoble: in ruining
the Anthophora, she is but imitating man in
one detail, man who is the infinite source of
destruction. Her parasitism is no blacker
than ours: she has to feed her offspring; and,
possessing no harvesting-tools, ignorant be-
sides of the art of harvesting, she uses the
provisions of others who are better endowed
with implements and talents. In the fierce
riot of empty bellies, she does what she can
with the gifts at her disposal.

216

CHAPTER IX

THE THEORY OF PARASITISM

THE Melecta does what she can with the
gifts at her disposal. I should leave it
at that, if I had not to take into considera-
tion a grave charge brought against her. She
is accused of having lost, for want of use and
through laziness, the workman's tools with
which, so we are told, she was originally en-
dowed. Finding it to her advantage to do
nothing, bringing up her family free of ex-
pense, to the detriment of others, she is al-
leged to have gradually inspired her race with
an abhorrence for work. The harvesting-
tools, less and less often employed, dwindled
and as organs having no function; the species
changed into a different one; and finally idle-
ness turned the honest worker of the outset
into a parasite. This brings us to a very
simple and seductive theory of parasitism,
worthy to be discussed with all respect. Let
us set it forth.

Some mother, nearing the end of her la-
217

The Mason-bees

bours and in a hurry to lay h-er eggs, found,
let us suppose, some suitable cells provisioned
by her fellows. There was no time for nest-
building and foraging; if she would save her
family, she must perforce appropriate the
fruit of another's toil. Thus relieved of the
tedium and fatigue of work, freed of every
care but that of laying eggs, she left a pro-
geny which duly inherited the maternal sloth-
fulness and handed this down in its turn, in
a more and more accentuated form, as gen-
eration followed on generation; for the strug-
gle for life made this expeditious way of es-
tablishing yourself one of the most favour-
able conditions for the success of the off-
spring. At the same time, the organs of
work, left unemployed, became atrophied and
disappeared, while certain details of shape
and colouring were modified more or less, so
as to adapt themselves to the new circum-
stances. Thus the parasitic race was definite-
ly established.

This race, however, was not too greatly
transformed for us to be able, In certain
cases, to trace its origin. The parasite has
retained more than one feature of those in-
dustrious ancestors. So, for instance, the
918

The Theory of Parasitism

Psithyrus is extremely like the Bumble-bee,
whose parasite and descendant she is. The
Stelis preserves the ancestral characteristics
of the Anthidium; the Coelloxys-bee recalls
the Leaf-cutter.

Thus speak the evolutionists, with a wealth
of evidence derived not only from correspond-
ence in general appearance, but also from
similarity in the most minute particulars.
Nothing Is small : I am as much convinced of
that as any man; and I admire the extraor-
dinary precision of the details furnished as a
basis for the theory. But am I convinced?
Rightly or wrongly, my turn of mind does
not hold minutiae of structure In great fa-
vour: a joint of the palpi leaves me rather
cold; a tuft of bristles does not appear to me
an unanswerable argument. I prefer to quest-
Ion the creature direct and to let it describe
its passions, Its mode of life, Its aptitudes.
Having heard Its evidence, we shall see what
becomes of the theory of parasitism.

Before calling upon it to speak, why should
I not say what I have on my mind? And
mark me, first of all, I do not like that lazi-
ness which is said to favour the animal's pro-
sperity. I have always believed and I still
219

The Mason-bees

persist in believing that activity alone
strengthens the present and ensures the fu-
ture both of animals and men. To act is to
live; to work is to go forward. The energy
of a race is measured by the aggregate of its
action.

No, I do not like it at all, this idleness so
much commended of science. We have quite
enough of these zoological brutalities: rran,
the son of the Ape; duty, a foolish prejudice;
conscience, a lure for the simple; genius, neu-
rosis; patriotism, jingo heroics; the soul, a
product of protoplasmic energies; God, a
puerile myth. Let us raise the war-whoop
and go out for scalps; we are here only to
devour one another; the summiim bonum is
the Chicago packer's dollar-chest! Enough,
quite enough of that, without having trans-
formlsm next, to break down the sacred law
of work. I will not hold it responsible for
our moral ruin; it has not a sturdy enough
shoulder to effect such a breach; but still it
has done its worst.

No, once more, I do not like those brutali-
ties which, denying all that gives some dig-
nity to our wretched life, stifle our horizon
under an extinguisher of matter. Oh, don't

The Theory of Parasitism

come and forbid me to think, though it were
but a dream, of a responsible human person-
ality, of conscience, of duty, of the dignity
of labour! Everything is linked together:
if the animal is better off, as regards both
itself and its race, for doing nothing and ex-
ploiting others, why should man, its descend-
ant, show greater scruples? The principle
that idleness is the mother of prosperity
would carry us far indeed. I have said
enough on my own account; I will call upon
the animals themselves, more eloquent than I.
Are we so very sure that parasitic habits
come from a love of inaction? Did the para-
site become what he is because he found it
excellent to do nothing? Is repose so great an
advantage to him that he abjured his ancient
customs in order to obtain it? Well, since
I have been studying the Bee who endows
her family with the property of others, I have
not yet seen anything in her that points to
slothfulness. On the contrary, the parasite
leads a laborious life, harder than that of the
worker. Watch her on a slope blistered by
the sun. How busy she is, how anxious!
How briskly she covers every inch of the ra-
diant expanse, how indefatigable she is in

221

The Mason-bees

her endless quests, in her visits, which are
generally fruitless ! Before coming upon a
nest that suits her, she has dived a hundred
times into cavities of no value, into galleries
not yet victualled. And then, however kindly
her host, the parasite is not always well re-
ceived in the hostelry. No, it is not all roses
in her trade. The expenditure of time and
labour which she finds necessary in order to
house an egg may easily equal or even exceed
that of the worker In building her cell and
filling it with honey. That Industrious one
has regular and continuous work, an excel-
lent condition for success in her egg-laying;
the other has a thankless and precarious task,
at the mercy of a thousand accidents which
endanger the great undertaking of Installing
the eggs. One has only to watch the pro-
longed hesitation of a Coelioxys seeking for
the Leaf-cutters' cells to recognize that the
usurpation of another's nest is not effected
without serious difficulties. If she turned
parasite in order to make the rearing of her
offspring easier and more prosperous, cert-
ainly she was very ill-inspired. Instead of
rest, hard work; Instead of a flourishing
family, a meagre progeny.

222

The Theory of Parasitism

To generalities, which are necessarily
vague, we will add some precise facts, A
certain Stelis {Stelis nasuta, Latr.) is a
parasite of the Chalicodoma of the Walls.
When the Mason-bee has finished building
her dome of cells upon her pebble, the para-
site appears, makes a long inspection of the
outside of the home and proposes, puny as
she is, to introduce her eggs into this cement
fortress. Everything is most carefully closed:
a layer of rough plaster, at least two-fifths of
an inch thick, entirely covers the central ac-
cumulation of cells, which are each of them
sealed with a thick mortar plug. And it is
the honey of these well-guarded chambers
that has to be reached by piercing a wall al-
most as hard as rock.

The parasite pluckily sets to; the idler be-
comes a glutton for work. Atom by atom,
she perforates the general enclosure and
scoops out a shaft just sufficient for her pas-
sage; she reaches the lid of the cell and
gnaws it until the coveted provisions appear
in sight. It is a slow and painful process,
in which the feeble Stelis wears herself out,
for the mortar is much the same as Roman
cement in hardness. I find difficulty myself
223

The Mason-bees

in breaking it with the point of my knife.
What patient effort, then, the task requires
from the parasite, with her tiny pincers!

I do not know exactly how long the Stelis
takes to make her entrance-shaft, as I have
never had the opportunity or rather the pa-
tience to follow the work from start to finish;
but what I do know is that a Chalicodoma
of the Walls, incomparably larger and
stronger than the parasite, when demolishing
before my eyes the lid of a cell sealed only
the day before, was unable to complete her
undertaking in one afternoon. I had to come
to her assistance in order to discover, before
the end of the day, the object of her house-
breaking. When the Mason-bee's mortar
has once set, its resistance is that of stone.
Now the Stelis has not only to pierce the lid
of the honey-store; she must also pierce the
general casing of the nest. What a time it
must take her to get through such a task, a
gigantic one for her poor tools !

It is done at last, after infinite labour. The
honey appears. The Stelis slips through and,
on the surface of the provisions, side by side
with the Chalicodoma's egg, which is re-
spected, she lays her own eggs, the number
224

The Theory of Parasitism

varying from time to time. The victuals
will be the common property of all the new
arrivals, whether the sons of the house or
strangers.

The violated dwelling cannot remain as It
is, exposed to marauders from without; the
parasite must herself wall up the breach
which she has contrived. The quondam house-
breaker becomes a builder. At the foot of
the pebble, the Stelis collects a little of that
red earth which characterizes our stony pla-
teaus grown with lavender and thyme; she
makes it into mortar by wetting it with sa-
liva; and with the pellets thus prepared she
fills up the entrance-shaft, displaying all the
care and art of a regular master-mason.
Only, the work clashes in colour with the
Chalicodoma's. The Bee goes and gathers
her cementing-powder on the adjoining high-
road, the metal of which consists of broken
flint-stones, and very seldom uses the red
earth under the boulder supporting the nest.
This choice is apparently dictated by the fact
that the chemical properties of the former
are more likely to produce a solid structure.
The lime of the road, mixed with saliva,
yields a harder cement than red clay would
225

The Mason-bees

do. At any rate, the Chalicodoma's nest Is
more or less white because of the source of
its materials. When a red speck, a few milli-
metres wide, appears on this pale background,
it is a sure sign that a Stelis has been that
way. Open the cell that lies under the red
stain : we shall find the parasite's numerous
family established there. The rusty spot is
an infallible Indication that the dwelling has
been violated: at least, it is so In my neigh-
bourhood, where the soil is as I have de-
scribed.

We see the Stelis, therefore, at first a rabid
miner, using her mandibles against the rock;
next a kneader of clay and a plasterer restor-
ing broken ceilings. Her trade does not seem
one of the least arduous. Now what did she
do before she took to parasitism? Judging
from her appearance, the transformists tell
us that she was an Anthidium, that is to say,
she used to gather the soft cotton-wool from
the dry stalks of the lanate plants and make
it into wallets, in which to heap up the
pollen-dust which she gleaned from the flow-
ers by means of a brush carried on her ab-
domen. Or else, springing from a genus
akin to the cotton-workers, she used to build
226

The Theory of Parasitism

resin partitions in the spiral stairway of a
dead Snail. Such was the trade driven by her
ancestors.

Really! So, to avoid slow and painful
work, to achieve an easy life, to give herself
the leisure favourable to the settlement of her
family, the erstwhile cotton-weaver or col-
lector of resin-drops took to gnawing hard-
ened cement 1 She who once sipped the nec-
tar of flowers made up her mind to chew con-
crete I Why, the poor wretch toils at her filing
like a galley-slave! She spends more time
in ripping up a cell than it would take her to
make a cotton wallet and fill it with food.
If she really meant to progress, to do better
in her own interest and that of her family,
by abandoning the delicate occupations of
the old days, we must confess that she has
made a strange mistake. The mistake would
be no greater if fingers accustomed to fancy
weaving were to lay aside velvet and silk and
proceed to handle the quarryman's blocks or
to break stones on the roadside.

No, the animal does not commit the folly

of voluntarily embittering its lot; it does not,

in obedience to the promptings of idleness,

give up one condition to embrace another and

227

The Mason-bees

a more Irksome; should It blunder for once,
it will not inspire its posterity with a wish to
persevere In a costly delusion. No, the Stells
never abandoned the .delicate art of cotton-
weaving to break down walls and to grind
cement, a class of work far too unattractive
to efface the memory of the joys of harvesting
amid the flowers. Indolence has not evolved
her from an Anthldlum. She has always
been what she is to-day: a patient artificer in
her own line, a steady worker at the task that
has fallen to her share.

That hurried mother who first, in remote
ages, broke into the abode of her fellows to
secure a home for her eggs found this un-
scrupulous method, so you tell us, very fa-
vourable to the success of her race, by virtue
of its economy of time and trouble. The im-
pression left by this new policy was so pro-
found that heredity bequeathed it to post-
erity, in ever-increasing proportions, until at
last parasitic habits became definitely fixed.
The Chalicodoma of the Sheds, followed by
the Three-horned Osmla, will teach us what
to think of this conjecture.

I have described in an earlier chapter my in-
stallation of Challcodoma-hives ;against th<»
228

The Theory of Parasitism

walls of a porch facing the south. Here, on a
level with my head, placed so that they can
easily be observed, hang some tiles removed
from the neighbouring roofs in winter, to-
gether with their enormous nests and their
occupants. Every May, for five or six years in
succession, I have assiduously watched the
works of my Mason-bees. From the mass of
my notes on the subject I take the following
experiments which bear upon the matter un-
der discussion.

Long ago, when I used to scatter a handful
of Chalicodomae some way from home, in
order to study their capacity for finding their
nest again, I noticed that, if they were too
long absent, the laggards found their cells
closed on their return. Neighbours had
taken the opportunity to lay their eggs there,
after finishing the building and stocking It
with provisions. The abandoned property
benefited another. On realizing the usurpa-
tion, the Bee returning from her long journey
soon consoled herself for the mishap. She
began to break the seals of some cell or other,
adjoining her own; the rest let her have her
way, being doubtless too busy with their pre-
sent labours to seek a quarrel with the free-
229

The Mason-bees

booter. As soon as she had destroyed the
lid, the Bee, with a sort of feverish haste that
burned to repay theft by theft, did a little
building, did a little victualling, as though to
resume the thread of her occupations, de-
stroyed the egg in being, laid her own and
closed the cell again. Here was a touch of
nature that deserved careful examination.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, when the
work is at its height, I mark half a score of
ChalicodomfE with different colours, to dis-
tinguish them from one another. Some are
occupied with building, others are disgorg-
ing honey. I mark the corresponding cells in
the same way. As soon as the marks are
quite dry, I catch the ten Bees, place them
singly in screws of paper and shut them all in
a box until the next morning. After twenty-
four hours' captivity, the prisoners are re-
leased. During their absence, their cells have
disappeared under a layer of recent struct-
ures; or, if still exposed to view, they are
closed and others have made use of them.

As soon as they are free, the ten Bees,

with one exception, return to their respective

tiles. They do more than this, so accurate

is their memory, despite the confusion result-

230

The Theory of Parasitism

ing from a prolonged incarceration: they re-
turn to the cell which they have built, the be-
loved stolen cell; they minutely explore the
outside of It, or at least what lies nearest to
it, if the cell has disappeared under the new
structures. In cases where the home is not
henceforward inaccessible, It is at least occu-
pied by a strange egg and the door is securely
fastened. To this reverse of fortune the
ousted ones retort with the brutal lex tali-
onis: an egg for an egg, a cell for a cell.
You've stolen my house; I'll steal yours.
And, without much hesitation, they proceed
to force the lid of a cell that suits them.
Sometimes they recover possession of their
own home, if it is possible to get into it ; some-
times and more frequently they seize upon
some one else's dwelling, even at a consider-
able distance from their original dwelling.

Patiently they gnaw the mortar lid. As the
general rough-cast covering all the cells is not
applied until the end of the work, all that
they need do is to demolish the lid, a hard
and wearisome task, but not beyond the
strength of their mandibles. They therefore
attack the door, the cement disk, and reduce
it to dust. The criminal is allowed to carry
231

The Mason-bees

out her nefarious designs without the slight-
est interference or protest from any of her
neighbours, though these must necessarily in-
clude the chief party interested. The Bee is
as forgetful of her cell of yesterday as she is
jealous of her actual cell. To her the present
is everything; the past means nothing; and
the future means no more. The people of
the tile therefore leave the breakers of doors
to do their business in peace; none hastens to
the defence of a home that might well be her
own. How differently things would happen
if the cell were still on the stocks! But it
dates back to yesterday, to the day before;
and no one gives it another thought.

It's done: the lid is demolished, access is
free. For some time the Bee stands bending
over the cell, her head half-buried in it, as
though in contemplation. She goes away,
she returns undecidedly; at last she makes up
her mind. The egg is snapped up from the
surface of the honey and flung on the rubbish-
heap with no more ceremony than if the Bee
were ridding the house of a bit of dirt. I
have witnessed this hideous crime again and
yet again; I confess to having repeatedly pro-
voked it. In housing her egg, the Mason-bee
232

The Theory of Parasitism

displays a brutal Indifference to the fate of
her neighbour's egg.

I see some of them afterward busy pro-
visioning, disgorging honey and brushing pol-
len Into the cell already completely provi-
sioned; I see some masoning a little at the
orifice, or at least laying on a few trowels of
mortar. It seems as if the Bee, although the
victuals and the building are just as they
should be, were resuming the work at the
point at which she left It twenty-four hours
before. Lastly, the egg Is laid and the open-
ing closed up. Of my captives, one, less pa-
tient than the rest, rejects the slow process of
eating away the cover and decides In favour
of robbery with violence, on the principle that
might is right. She dislodges the owner of a
half-stocked cell, keeps good watch for a long
time on the threshold of the home and, when
she feels herself the mistress of the house,
goes on with the provisioning. I follow the
ousted proprietress with my eyes. I see her
seize upon a closed cell by breaking into it and
behave in all respects like my imprisoned
Challcodomas.

The whole occurrence was too significant
to be left without further confirmation. I
233

The Mason-bees

repeated the experiment, therefore, almost
every year, always with the same success. I
can only add that, among the Bees placed by
my artifices under the necessity of making up
for lost time, a few are of a more easy-going
temperament. I see some building anew, as
if nothing out of the way had happened;
others — this is a very rare course — going to
settle on another tile, as though to avoid a
society of thieves; and lastly a few who bring
pellets of mortar and zealously finish the lid
of their own cell, although it contains a
strange egg. However, housebreaking is the
usual thing.

One more detail not without value: It Is
not necessary for you to intervene and im-
prison Mason-bees for a time In order to wit-
ness the acts of violence which I have de-
scribed. If you follow the work of the swarm
assiduously, you may occasionally find a sur-
prise awaiting you. A Mason-bee will appear
and, for no reason known to you, break open
a door and lay her egg in the violated cell.
From what goes before, I look upon the Bee
as a laggard, kept away from the workyard
by an accident, or else carried to a distance
by a gust of wind. On returning after an
234

The Theory of Parasitism

absence of some duration, she finds her place
taken, her cell used by another. The victim
of an usurper's villainy, like the prisoners in
my paper screws, she behaves as they do and
indemnifies herself for her loss by breaking
into another's home.

Lastly, it was a matter of learning the be-
haviour, after their act of violence, of the
Masons who have smashed in a door, bru-
tally expelled the egg within and replaced it
by one of their own laying. When the lid is
repaired to look as good as new and every-
thing restored to order, will they continue
their burglarious ways and exterminate the
eggs of others to make room for their own?
By no means. Revenge, that pleasure of the
gods and perhaps also of Bees, is satisfied
after one cell has been ripped open. All
anger is appeased when the egg for which so
much work has been done is safely housed.
Henceforth, both prisoners and stray laggards
resume their ordinary labours, indifferently
with the rest. They build honestly, they pro-
vision honestly, nor meditate further evil.
The past is quite forgotten until a fresh dis-
aster occurs.

To return to the parasites: a mother
235

The Mason-bees

chanced to find herself the mistress of an-
other's nest. She took advantage of this to
entrust her egg to it. This expeditious
method, so easy for the mother and so fa-
vourable to the success of her offspring, made
such an impression on her that she transmitted
the maternal indolence to her posterity.
Thus the worker gradually became trans-
formed into a parasite.

Capital ! The thing goes like clockwork,
as long as we have only to put our ideas on
paper. But let us just consult the facts, if you
don't mind; before arguing about probabili-
ties, let us look Into things as they are. Here
is the Mason-bee of the Sheds teaching us
something very curious. To smash the lid of
a cell that does not belong to her, to throw
the egg out of doors and put her own In its
place is a practice which she has followed
since time began. There Is no need of my
Interference to make her commit burglary:
she commits it of her own accord, when her
rights are prejudiced as the result of a too-
long absence. Ever since her race has been
kneading cement, she has known the law of
retaliation. Countless ages, such as the evo-
lutionists require, have made her adopt forcl-
236

The Theory of Parasitism

ble usurpation as an inveterate habit. More-
over, robbery is so incomparably easy for the
mother. No more cement to scratch up with
her mandibles on the hard ground, no more
mortar to knead, no more clay walls to build,
no more pollen to gather on hundreds and
hundreds of journeys. All is ready, board
and lodging. Never was a better opportunity
for allowing one's self a good time. There
Is nothing against it. The others, the work-
ers, are imperturbable in their good-humour.
Their outraged cells leave them profoundly
Indifferent. There are no brawls to fear, no
protests. Now or never is the moment to
tread the primrose path.

Besides, your progeny will be all the better
for it. You can choose the warmest and
wholesomest spots; you can multiply your
laying-operations by devoting to them all the
time that you would have to spend on Irksome
occupations. If the impression produced by
the violent seizure of another's property is
strong enough to be handed down by heredity,
how deep should be the impression of the
actual moment when the Mason-bee is In the
first flush of success ! The precious advant-
age is fresh in the memory, dating from that
237

. The Mason-bees

very Instant; the mother has but to continue
In order to create a method of Installation
favourable In the highest degree to her and
hers. Come, poor Bee ! Throw aside your
exhausting labours, follow the evolutionists'
advice and, as you have the means at your
disposal, become a parasite !

But no, having effected her little revenge,
the mason returns to her masonry, the gleaner
to her gleaning, with unquenchable zeal. She
forgets the crime committed in a moment of
anger and takes good care not to hand down
any tendency toward idleness to her offspring.
She knows too well that acitivity is life, that
work is the world's great joy. What myriads
of cells has she not broken open since she has
been building; what magnificent opportuni-
ties, all so clear and conclusive, has she not
had to emancipate herself from drudgery!
Nothing could convince her: born to work,
she persists in an industrious life. She might
at least have produced an offshoot, a race of
housebreakers, who would invade cells by de-
molishing doors. The Stelis does something
of the kind; but who would think of proclaim-
ing a relationship between the Chalicodoma
and her? The two have nothing in common.
238

The Theory of Parasitism

I call for a scion of the Mason-bee of the
Sheds who shall live by the art of breaking
through ceilings. Until they show me one,
the theorists will only make me smile when
they talk to me of erstwhile workers relin-
quishing their trade to become parasitic slug-
gards.

I also call, with no less insistence, for a
descendant of the Three-horned Osmia, a de-
scendant given to demolishing party-walls. I
will describe presently how I managed to
make a whole swarm of these Osmiae build
their nests on the table In my study, in glass
tubes that enabled me to see the inmost se-
crets of the work of the Bee. For three or
four weeks, each Osmia is scrupulously faith-
ful to her tube, which is laboriously filled
with a set of chambers divided by earthen
partitions. Marks of different colours painted
on the thorax of the workers enable me to
recognize individuals in the crowd. Each
crystal gallery is the exclusive property of one
Osmia; no other enters it, builds in it or
hoards in it. If, through heedlessness,
through momentary forgetfulness of her own
house in the tumult of the city, some neigh-
bour so much as comes and looks in at the
239

The Mason-bees

door, the owner soon puts her to flight. No
such Indiscretion Is tolerated. Every Bee has
her home and every home its Bee.

All goes well until just before the end of
the work. The tubes are then closed at the
orifice with a thick plug of earth ; nearly the
whole swarm has disappeared; there remain
on the spot a score of tatterdemalions in
threadbare fleeces, worn out by a month's
hard toil. These laggards have not finished
their laying. There is no lack of unoccupied
tubes, for I take care to remove some of those
which are full and to replace them by others
that have not yet been used. Very few of the
Bees decide to take possession of those new
homes, which differ in no particular from the
earlier ones; and even then they build only a
small number of cells, which are often mere
attempts at partitions.

They want something different: a nest be-
longing to some one else. They bore through
the plug of the inhabited tubes, a work of no
great difficulty, for we have here not the hard
cement of the Chalicodoma, but a simple lid
of dried mud. When the entrance is cleared,
a cell appears, with its store of provisions and
its egg. The Osmla snatches that fragile
240

The Theory of Parasitism

thing, the egg, with her brutal mandibles;
she rips it open and goes and flings it away.
She does worse: she eats it on the spot. I
had to witness this horror many times over
before I could accept it as a fact. Note that
the egg devoured may very well contain the
criminal's own offspring. Imperiously swayed
by the needs of her present family, the Osmia
puts her past family entirely out of her mind.

Having perpetrated this child-murder, the
depraved creature does a little provisioning.
They all experience the same necessity to go
backwards in the sequence of actions in order
to pick up the thread of their interrupted oc-
cupations. Her next work is to lay her egg
and then she conscientiously restores the de-
molished lid.

The havoc can be more sweeping still. One
of these laggards is not satisfied with a single
cell; she needs two, three, four. To reach the
most remote, the Osmia wrecks all those
which comes before it. The partitions are
broken down, the eggs are eaten or thrown
away, the provisions are swept outside, are
often even carried to a distance in great
lumps. Covered with dust from the loose
plaster of the demolition, floured all over
241

The Mason-bees

with the rifled pollen, sticky with the contents
of the mangled eggs, the Osmia, while at her
brigand's work, is altered beyond recognition.
Once the place is cleared, everything resumes
its normal course. Provisions are laboriously
brought to take the place of those which have
been thrown away; eggs are laid, one on each
heap of food; the partitions are built up
again; and the massive plug sealing the whole
structure is made as good as new.

Crimes of this kind recur so often that I
am obliged to interfere and place in safety
the nests which I wish to keep intact. And
nothing as yet explains this brigandage, burst-
ing forth at the end of the work like a moral
epidemic, like a frenzied delirium. I should
say nothing if the site were lacking; but the
tubes are there, close by, empty and quite fit
to receive the eggs. The Osmia refuses them,
she prefers to plunder. Is it from weariness,
from a distaste for work after a period of
fierce activity? Not at all; for, when a row
of cells has been stripped of its contents, after
the ravage and waste, she has to come back
to ordinary work, with all its burdens. The
labour is not reduced; it is increased. It
would pay the Bee infinitely better, if she
242

The Theory of Parasitism

wants to continue her laying, to make her
home in an unoccupied tube. The Osmia
thinks differently. Her reasons for acting as
she does escape me. Can there be ill-condi-
tioned characters among her, characters that
delight in a neighbour's ruin? There are
among men.

In the privacy of her native haunts, the
Osmia, I have no doubt, behaves as in my
crystal galleries. Towards the end of the
building-operations, she violates others' dwell-
ings. By keeping to the first cell, which it is
not necessary to empty in order to reach the
next, she can utilize the provisions on the spot
and shorten to that extent the longest part of
her work. As usurpations of this kind have
had ample time to become inveterate, to be-
come inbred in the race, I ask for a descend-
ant of the Osmia who eats her grandmother's
egg in order to establish her own.

This descendant I shall not be shown; but
I may be told that she is in process of forma-
tion. The outrages which I have described
are preparing a future parasite. The trans-
formists dogmatize about the past and dogma-
tise about the future, but as seldom as pos-
sible talk to us about the present. Trans-
243

The Mason-bees

formations have taken place, transformations
will take place; the pity of it is that they are
not actually taking place. Of the three
tenses, one is lacking, the very one which di-
rectly interests us and which alone is clear
of the incubus of theory. This silence about
the present does not please me overmuch,
scarcely more than the famous picture oi The
Crossing of the Red Sea painted for a village
chapel. The artist had put upon the canvas
a broad ribbon of brightest scarlet; and that
was all.

"Yes, that's the Red Sea," said the priest,
examining the masterpiece before paying for
it. "That's the Red Sea, right enough; but
where are the Israelites?"

"They have passed," replied the painter.

"And the Egyptians?"

"They are on the way."

Transformations have passed, transforma-
tions are on the way. For mercy's sake, can-
not they show us transformations in the act?
Must the facts of the past and the facts of the
future necessarily exclude the facts of the
present? I fail to understand.

I call for a descendant of the Chalicodoma
and a descendant of the Osmia who have
244

The Theory of Parasitism

robbed their neighbours with gusto, when oc-
casion offered, since the origin of their respec-
tive races, and who are working industriously
to create a parasite happy in doing nothing.
Have they succeeded? No. Will they suc-
ceed? Yes, people maintain. For the moment,
nothing. The Osmise and Chalicodomae of
to-day are what they were when the first
trowel of cement or mud was mixed. Then
how many ages does it take to form a para-
site? Too many, I fear, for us not to be
discouraged.

If the sayings of the theorists are well-
founded, going on strike and living by shifts
was not always enough to assure parasitism.
In certain cases, the animal must have had to
change its diet, to pass from live prey to vege-
tarian fare, which would entirely subvert its
most essential characteristics. What should
we say to the Wolf giving up mutton and
browsing on grass, in obedience to the dic-
tates of idleness? The boldest would shrink
from such an absurd assumption. And yet
transformism leads us straight to it.

Here is an example: in July, I split some
bramble-stems in which Osmia tridentata has
built her nests. In the long series of cells, the
245

The Mason-bees

lower already hold the Osmia's cocoons, while
the upper contain the larva which has nearly
finished consuming its provisions and the top-
most show the victuals untouched, with the
Osmia's egg, another egg is fixed: an egg
egg, rounded at both extremities, of a trans-
parent white and measuring four to five milli-
metres^ in length. It lies slantwise, one end
of it resting on the food and the other stick-
ing up at some distance above the honey.
Now, by multiplying my visits to the fresh
cells, I have on several occasions made a very
valuable discovery. On the free end of the
Osmia's egg, another egg is fixed; an egg
quite different in shape, white and transparent
like the first, but much smaller and narrower,
blunt at one end and tapering into a rather
sharp point at the other. It is two millimetres
long by half a millimetre wide.- It is unde-
niably the egg of a parasite, a parasite which
compels my attention by its curious method
of installing its family.

It opens before the Osmia's egg. The tiny
grub, as soon as it is born, begins to drain
the rival egg, of which it occupies the top

^.156 to .195 inch. — Translator's Note.
2.078 and .019 inch. — Translator's Note.
246

The Theory of Parasitism

part, high up above the honey. The exter-
mination soon becomes perceptible. You can
see the Osmia's egg turning muddy, losing
its brilliancy, becoming limp and wrinkled.
In twenty-four hours, it is nothing but an
empty sheath, a crumpled bit of skin. All
competition is now removed; the parasite Is
the master of the house. The young grub,
when demolishing the egg, was active enough:
it explored the dangerous thing which had to
be got rid of quickly, it raised its head to
select and multiply the attacking-points.
Now, lying at full length on the surface of
the honey, it no longer shifts its position; but
the undulations of the digestive canal betray
its greedy absorption of the Osmia's store of
food. The provisions are finished in a fort-
night and the cocoon is woven. It is a fairly
firm ovoid, of a very dark-brown colour, two
characteristics which at once distinguish it
from the Osmia's pale, cylindrical cocoon.
The hatching takes place in April or May.
The puzzle is solved at last: the Osmia's
parasite is a Wasp called Sapyga punctata,
V. L.

Now where are we to class this Wasp, a
true parasite in the strict sense of the word,
247

The Mason-bees

that is to say, a consumer of others' provi-
sions? Her general appearance and her
structure make it clear to any eye more or less
familiar with entomological shapes that she
belongs to a species akin to that of the Scolias.
Moreover, the masters of classification, so
scrupulous in their comparison of character-
istics, agree in placing the Sapyg^ immedi-
ately after the Scoliae and a little before the
Mutillae. The Scoliae feed their grubs on prey;
so do the Mutillae. The Osmia's parasite,
therefore, if it really derives from a trans-
formed ancestor, is descended from a flesh-
eater, though it is now an eater of honey.
The Wolf does more than become a Sheep:
he turns himself into a sweet-tooth.

"You will never get an apple-tree out of
an acorn," Franklin tells us, with that homely
common-sense of his.

In this case, the passion for jam must have
sprung from a love of venison. Any theory
might well be deficient in balance when it
leads to such vagaries as this.

I should have to write a volume if I would

go on setting forth my doubts. I have said

enough for the moment. Man, the insatiable

enquirer, hands down from age to age his

248

The Theory of Parasitism

questions about the whys and wherefores of
origins. Answer follows answer, is pro-
claimed true to-day and recognized as false
to-morrow; and the goddess Isis continues
veiled.

249

CHAPTER X

THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE MASON-BEE

TO ILLUSTRATE the methods of those
who batten on others' goods, the plun-
derers who know no rest till they have
wrought the destruction of the worker, It
would be difficult to find a better Instance
than the tribulations suffered by the Chalico-
doma of the Walls. The Mason who builds
on the pebbles may fairly boast of being an
industrious workwoman. Throughout the
month of May, we see her black squads, in
the full heat of the sun, digging with busy
teeth In the mortar-quarry of the road hard
by. So great is her zeal that she hardly
moves out of the way of the passer-by; more
than one allows herself to be crushed under-
foot, all absorbed as she Is in collecting her
cement.

The hardest and driest spots, which still
retain the compactness Imparted by the
steam-roller, are the favourite veins; and the

work of making the pellet Is slow and pain-

250

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

ful. It Is scraped up atom by atom ; and, by
means of saliva, it is turned into mortar then
and there. When It Is all well kneaded and
there Is enough to make a load, the Mason
sets off with an Impetuous flight, in a straight
line, and makes for her pebble, a few hun-
dred paces away. The trowel of fresh mor-
tar Is soon spent, either In adding another
story to the turret-shaped edifice, or in ce-
menting Into the wall lumps of gravel that
give It greater solidity. The journeys In
search of cement are removed until the struct-
ure attains the regulation height. Without
a moment's rest, the Bee returns a hundred
times to the stone-yard, always to the one
spot recognized as excellent.

The victuals are now collected: honey and
flower-dust. If there Is a pink carpet of sain-
foin anywhere in the neighbourhood, 'tis there
that the Mason goes plundering by prefer-
ence, though It cost her a four hundred yards*
journey every time. Her crop swells with
honeyed exudations, her belly Is floured with
pollen. Back to the cell, which slowly fills;
and back straightway to the harvest-field.
And all day long, with not a sign of weari-
ness, the same activity is maintained as long
251

The Mason-bees

as the sun is high enough. When it is late,
if the house is not yet closed, the Bee retires
to her cell to spend the night there, head
downward, tip of the abdomen outside, a
habit foreign to the Chalicodoma of the
Sheds. Then and then alone the Mason
rests; but it is a rest that is in a sense equiva-
lent to work, for, thus placed, she blocl<:s the
entrance to the honey-store and defends her
treasure against twilight- or night-marauders.

Being anxious to form some estimate of
the total distance covered by the Bee in the
construction and provisioning of a single cell,
I counted the number of steps from a nest to
the road where the mortar was mixed and
from the same nest to the sainfoin-field where
the harvest was gathered. I took such note
as my patience permitted of the journeys
made in both directions; and, completing
these data with a comparison between the
work done and that which remained to do, I
arrived at nine and a half miles as the result
of the total travelling. Of course, I give this
figure only as a rough calculation; greater
precision would have demanded more perse-
verance than I can boast.

Such as it is, the result, which is probably
252

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

under the actual figure in many cases, is of a
kind that gives us a vivid idea of the Mason-
bee's activity. The complete nest will com-
prise about fifteen cells. Moreover, the heap
of cells will be coated at the end with a layer
of cement a good finger's-breadth thick. This
massive fortification, which is less finished
than the rest of the work but more expensive
in materials, represents perhaps in itself one-
half of the complete task, so that, to establish
her dome, Chalicodoma muraria, coming and
going across the arid table-land, traverses al-
together a distance of 275 miles, which is
nearly half of the greatest dimension of
France, from north to south. After this,
when, worn out with all this fatigue, the Bee
retires to a hiding-place to languish in soli-
tude and die, she is surely entitled to say:
"I have laboured, I have done my duty!"
Yes, certainly, the Mason has toiled
with a vengeance. To ensure the future of
her ofi^spring, she has spent her own
life without reserve, her long life of
five or six weeks' duration; and now she
breathes her last, contented because every-
thing is in order in the beloved house : copious
rations of the first quality; a shelter against
253

The Mason-bees

the winter frosts; ramparts against incur-
sions of the enemy. Everything is in order,
at least so she thinks; but, alas, what a mis-
take the poor mother is making! Here the
hateful fatality stands revealed, aspera fata,
which ruins the producer to provide a living
for the drone ; here we see the stupid and fe-
rocious law that sacrifices the worker for the
idler's benefit. What have we done, we and
the insects, to be ground with sovereign in-
difference under the mill-stone of such
wretchedness? Oh, what terrible, what
heart-rending questions the Mason-bee's mis-
fortunes would bring to my lips, if I gave
free scope to my sombre thoughts ! But let
us avoid these useless whys and keep within
the province of the mere recorder.

There are some ten of them plotting the
ruin of the peaceable and industrious Bee; and
I do not know them all. Each has her own
tricks, her own art of injury, her own ex-
terminating tactics, so that no part of the
Mason's work may escape destruction. Some
seize upon the victuals, others feed on the
larvae, others again convert the dwelling to
their own use. Everything has to submit:
cell, provisions, scarce-weaned nurselings.
254

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

The stealers of food are the Stelis-wasp
{Stelis nasuta) and the Dioxys-bee {Dioxys
cincta). I have already said how, in the
Mason's absence, the Stelis perforates the
dome of cell after cell, lays her eggs there and
afterward repairs the breach with a mortar
made of red earth, which at once betrays the
parasite's presence to a watchful eye. The
Stelis, who is much smaller than the Chalico-
doma, finds enough food in a single cell for
the rearing of several of her grubs. The
mother lays a number of eggs, which I have
seen vary between the extremes of two and
twelve, on the surface, next to the Mason's
egg, which itself undergoes no outrage what-
ever.

Things do not go so badly at first. The
feasters swim — it is the only word — in the
midst of plenty; they eat and digest like
brothers. Presently times become hard for
the hostess' son: the food decreases, dearth
sets in; and at last not an atom remains, al-
though the Mason's larva has attained at
most a quarter of its growth. The others,
more expeditious feeders, have exhausted the
victuals long before the victim has finished
his normal repast. The swindled grub
255

The Mason-bees

shrivels up and dies, while the gorged larvae
of the Stelis begin to spin their strong little
brown cocoons, pressed close together and
lumped into one mass, so as to make the best
use of the scanty space in the crowded dwell-
ing. Should you inspect the cell later, you
will find, between the heaped cocoons on the
wall, a little dried-up corpse. It is the larva
that was such an object of care to the mother
Mason. The efforts of the most laborious of
lives have ended in this lamentable relic. It
has happened to me just as often, when ex-
amining the secrets of the cell which is at
once cradle and tomb, not to come upon the
deceased grub at all. I picture the Stelis, be-
fore laying her own eggs, destroying the
Chalicodoma's egg and eating it, as the
Osmias do among themselves; or I picture the
dying thing, an irksome mass for the numer-
ous spinners at work in a narrow habitation,
being cut to pieces to make room for the
medley of cocoons. But to so many deeds of
darkness I would not like to add another by
an oversight; and I prefer to admit that I
failed to perceive the grub that died of
hunger.

Let us now show up the Dioxys. At the
256

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

time when the work of construction is in
progress, she is an impudent visitor of the
nests, exploiting with the same effrontery the
enormous cities of the Mason-bee of the
Sheds and the solitary cupolas of the Mason-
bee of the Pebbles. An innumerable popula-
tion, coming and going, humming and buz-
zing, strikes her with no awe. On the tiles
hanging from the walls of my porch, I see
her, with her red scarf round her body, stalk-
ing with sublime assurance over the ridged
expanse of nests. Her black schemes leave
the swarm profoundly indifferent; not one of
the workers dreams of chasing her off, unless
she should come bothering too closely. Even
then, all that happens is a few signs of impa-
tience on the part of the hustled Bee. There
is no serious excitement, no eager pursuits
such as the presence of a mortal enemy might
lead us to suspect. They are there in their
thousands, each armed with her dagger; any
one of them is capable of slaying the traitress;
and not one attacks her. The danger is not
suspected.

Meanwhile, she inspects the work-yard,
moves freely among the ranks of the Masons
and bides her time. If the owner be absent,
257

The Mason-bees

I see her diving into a cell, coming out again
a moment later with her mouth smeared with
pollen. She has been to try the provisions.
A dainty connoisseur, she goes from one store
to another, taking a mouthful of honey. Is
it a tithe for her personal maintenance, or a
sample tested for the benefit of her coming
grub? I should not like to say. What I
do know is that, after a certain number of
these tastings, I catch her stopping in a cell,
with her abdomen at the bottom and her
head at the orifice. This is the moment of
laying, unless I am very much indeed mis-
taken.

When the parasite is gone, I inspect the
home. I see nothing abnormal on the sur-
face of the mass. The sharper eye of the
owner, when she gets back, sees nothing
either, for she continues the victualling, with-
out betraying the least uneasiness. A strange
egg, laid on the provisions, would not escape
her. I know how clean she keeps her ware-
house; I know how scrupulously she casts out
anything introduced by my agency: an egg
that is not hers, a bit of straw, a grain of
dust. So, according to my evidence and that
of the Chalicodoma, which is more conclu-
258

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

sive, the Dioxys' egg, If It Is really laid then,
is not placed on the surface.

I suspect, without having yet verified my
suspicion — and I reproach myself for the
neglect — I suspect that the egg is buried in
the heap of pollen-dust. When I see the
Dioxys come out of a cell with her mouth all
over yellow flour, perhaps she has been sur-
veying the ground and preparing a hiding-
place for her egg. What I take for a mere
tasting might well be a more serious act.
Thus concealed, the egg escapes the eagle eye
of the Bee, whereas, if left uncovered, it
would inevitably perish, would be flung on
the rubbish-heap at once by the owner of the
nest. When the Spotted Sapyga-wasp lays
her egg on that of the Bramble-dwelling
Osmia, she does the deed under cover of
darkness, in the gloom of a deep well to
which not the least ray of light can pene-
trate; and the mother, returning with her
pellet of green putty to build the closing par-
tition, does not see the usurping germ and is
ignorant of the danger. But here every-
thing happens in broad daylight; and this
demands more cunning in the method of in-
stallation.

259

The Mason-bees

Besides, it Is the one favourable moment
for the Dioxys. If she waits for the Mason-
bee to lay, it is too late, for the parasite is
not able to break down doors, as the Stelis
does. As soon as her egg is laid, the Mason-
bee of the Sheds comes out of her cell and at
once turns round and proceeds to close it up
with the pellet of mortar which she holds
ready in her mandibles. The material is em-
ployed with such method that the actual seal-
ing is done In a moment; the other pellets, the
object of repeated journeys, will serve merely
to increase the thickness of the lid. The
chamber is Inaccessible to the Dioxys from
the first touch of the trowel. Hence it Is ab-
solutely necessary for her to see to her egg
before the Mason-bee of the Sheds has dis-
posed of hers and no less necessary to conceal
it from the Mason's watchful eye.

The difficulties are not so great in the nests
of the Mason-bee of the Pebbles. After this
Bee has laid her egg, she leaves It for a time
to go in search of the cement needed for clos-
ing the cell; or, if she already holds a pellet
in her mandibles, this is not enough to seal
it properly, as the orifice is larger. More
pellets are needed to wall up the entrance en-
260

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

tirely. The Dioxys would have time to strike
her blow during the mother's absences; but
everything seems to suggest that she behaves
on the pebbles as she does on the tiles. She
steals a march by hiding the egg in the mass
of pollen and honey.

What becomes of the Mason's egg con-
fined in the same cell with the egg of the
Dioxys? In vain have I opened nests at
every season; I have never found a vestige of
the egg nor of the grub of either Chalico-
doma. The Dioxys, whether as a larva on
the honey, or enclosed in its cocoon, or as the
perfect insect, was always alone. The rival
had disappeared without a trace. A sus-
picion thereupon suggests itself; and the facts
are so compelling that the suspicion is almost
equal to a certainty. The parasitic grub,
which hatches earlier than the other, emerges
from its hiding-place, from the midst of the
honey, comes to the surface and, with its first
bite, destroys the egg of the Mason-bee, as
the Sapyga does the egg of the Osmia, It is
an odious, but a supremely efficacious method.
Nor must we cry out too loudly against such
foul play on the part of a new-born infant:
we shall meet with even more heinous tactics
261

The Mason-bees

later. The criminal records of life are full
of these horrors which we dare not search too
deeply. An infinitesimal creature, a barely-
visible grub, with the swaddling-clothes of
its egg still clinging to it, is led by instinct,
as its first inspiration, to exterminate what-
ever Is in its way.

So the Mason's egg is exterminated. Was
it really necessary in the Dioxys' interest?
Not in the least. The hoard of provisions is
too large for its requirements in a cell of the
Chalicodoma of the Sheds; how much more
so in a cell of the Chalicodoma of the Peb-
bles ! She eats not a half, hardly a third of
it. The rest remains as it was, untouched.
We see here, in the destruction of the
Mason's egg, a flagrant waste which aggra-
vates the crime. For lack of food, the sur-
vivors on the raft of the Medusa indulged
in a little cannibalism ; hunger excuses many
things; but here there is enough and to spare.
When there is too much for her, what earthly
motive Impels the Dioxys to destroy a rival
in the germ stage? Why cannot she allow
the larva, her mess-mate, to take advantage
of the remains and afterwards to shift for
itself as best it can? But no: the Mason-
262

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

bee's offspring must needs be stupidly sacri-
ficed on the top of provisions which will only
grow mouldy and useless! I should be re-
duced to the gloomy lucubrations of a Scho-
penhauer if I once let myself begin on para-
sitism.

Such Is a brief sketch of the two para-
sites of the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles, true
parasites, consumers of provisions hoarded
on behalf of others. Their crimes are not
the bitterest tribulations of the Mason-bee.
If the first starves the Mason's grub to death,
if the second makes it perish in the egg, there
are others who have a more pitiable ending in
store for the worker's family. When the
Bee's grub, all plump and fat and greasy, has
finished its provisions and spun its cocoon
wherein to sleep the slumber akin to death,
the necessary period of preparation for its
future life, these other enemies hasten to the
nests whose fortifications are powerless
against their hideously ingenious methods.
Soon on the sleeper's body lies a nascent grub
which feasts in all security on the luscious
fare. The traitors who attack the larvae in
their lethargy are three in number: an An-
thrax, a Leucospis and a microscopic dagger-
263

The Mason-bees

wearer.* Their story deserves to be told
without reticence; and I shall tell it later.
For the moment, I merely mention the names
of the three exterminators.

The provisions are stolen, the egg is de-
stroyed. The young grub dies of hunger, the
larva is devoured. Is that all? Not yet.
The worker must be exploited thoroughly, in
her work as well as in her family. Here are
some now who covet her dwelling. When
the Mason is constructing a new edifice on
a pebble, her almost constant presence is
enough to keep the aspirants to free lodgings
at a distance; her strength and vigilance over-
awe whoso would annex her masonry. If, in
her absence, one greatly daring thinks of visit-
ing the building, the owner soon appears upon
the scene and ousts her with the most dis-
couraging animosity. She has no need then
to fear the entrance of unwelcome tenants
while the house is new. But the Bee of the
Pebbles also uses old dwellings for her lay-
ing, as long as they are not too much dilapi-
dated. In the early stages of the work, neigh-

^Monodontomerus cupreus. For this and the Anthrax,
cf. The Life of the Fly: chaps, ii. and iii. The Leucospis
forms the subject of the next chapter of the present vol-
ume.- ^Translator's Note.

264

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

hours compete for these with an eagerness
which shows the value attached to them.
Face to face, at times with their mandibles
interlocked, now both rising into the air, now
coming down again, then touching ground
and rolling ove^ each other, next flying up
again, for hours on end they will wage battle
for the property at issue.

A ready-made nest, a family heirloom
which needs but a little restoring, is a pre-
cious thing for the Mason, ever sparing of
her time. We find so many of the old homes
repaired and restocked that I suspect the Bee
of laying new foundations only when there
are no second-hand nests to be had. To have
the chambers of a dome occupied by a
stranger therefore means a serious privation.

Now several Bees, however industrious in
gathering honey, building party-walls and
fashioning receptacles for provisions, are less
clever at preparing the resorts in which the
cells are to be stacked. The abandoned cham-
bers of the Chalicodoma, now larger than
they were originally, through the addition of
the hall of exit, are first-rate acquisitions for
them. The great thing Is to occupy these
chambers first, for here possession is nine

. 2bo

The Mason-bees

parts of the law. Once established, the
Mason is not disturbed in her home, while
she, in her turn, does not disturb the stranger
who has settled down before her in an old
nest, the patrimony of her family. The easy-
going disinherited one leaves the Bohemian
to enjoy the ruined manor in peace and goes
to another pebble to establish herself at fresh
expense.

In the first rank of these free tenants, I
will place an Osmia {Osmia cyanoxantha,
Perez) and a Megachile, or Leaf-cutting
Bee {Megachile apicalis, Spin.), both of
whom work in May, at the same time as the
Mason, while both are small enough to lodge
from five to eight cells in a single chamber of
the Chalicodoma, a chamber increased by the
addition of an outer hall. The Osmia sub-
divides this space into very irregular com-
partments, by means of slanting, upright or
curved partitions, subject to the dictates of
space. There is no art, consequently, in the
accumulation of little cells; the architect's
only task is to use the breadth at her dis-
posal in a frugal manner. The material em-
ployed for the partitions is a green, vegetable
putty, which the Osmia must obtain by chew-
266

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

ing the shredded leaves of a plant whose na-
ture is still uncertain. The same green paste
serves for the thick plug that closes the abode.
But in this case the insect does not use it un-
adulterated. To give greater power of re-
sistance to the work, it mixes a number of bits
of gravel with the vegetable cement. These
materials, which are easily picked up, are
lavishly employed, as though the mother
feared lest she should not fortify sufficiently
the entrance to her dwelling. They form a
sort of coarse stucco on the more or less
smooth cupola of the Chalicodoma; and this
unevenness, as well as the green colouring of
its mortar of masticated leaves, at once be-
trays the Osmia's nest. In course of time,
under the prolonged action of the air, the
vegetable putty turns brown and assumes a
dead-leaf tint, especially on the outside of the
plug; and it would then be difficult for any
one who had not seen them when freshly
made to recognize their nature.

The old nests on the pebbles seem to suit
other Osmiae. My notes mention Osmia
Morawitzi, Perez, and Osmia cyanea,
KiRB., as having been recognized in these
dwellings, although they are not very assldu-
267

The Mason-bees

ous visitors. Lastly, to complete the enu-
meration of the Bees known to me as making
their homes In the Mason's cupolas, I must
add Megachile apicalis, who piles in each cell
a half-dozen or more honey-pots constructed
with disks cut from the leaves of the wild
rose, and an Anthidium whose species I can-
not state, having seen nothing of her but her
white cotton sacks.

The Mason-bee of the Sheds, on the other
hand, supplies free lodgings to two species of
Osmise, Osmia tricornis, Latr., and Osmia
Latreillii, Spin., both of whom are quite com-
mon. The Three-horned Osmia frequents
by preference the habitations of the Bees that
build their nests In populous colonies, such
as the Chalicodoma of the Sheds and the
Hairy-footed Anthophora. Latreille's Osmia
is nearly always found with the Three-horned
Osmia at the Chalicodoma's.

The real builder of the city and the ex-
ploiter of the labour of others work together,
at the same period, form a common swarm
and live in perfect harmony, each Bee of the
two species attendmg to her business in peace.
They share and share alike, as though by tacit
agreement. Is the Osmia discreet enough not
268

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

to put upon the good-natured Mason and to
utilize only abandoned passages, waste cells?
Or does she take possession of the home of
which the real owners could themselves have
made use? I lean in favour of usurpation,
for it is not rare to see the Chalicodoma of
the Sheds clearing out old cells and using
them as does her sister of the Pebbles. Be
this as it may, all this little busy world lives
without strife, some building anew, others di-
viding up the old dwelling.

Those Osmiae, on the contrary, who are
the self-invited guests of the Mason-bee of
the Pebbles are the sole occupants of the
dome. The cause of this isolation lies in the
unsociable temper of the proprietress. The
old nest does not suit her from the moment
that she sees it occupied by another. Instead
of going shares, she prefers to seek elsewhere
a dwelling where she can work in solitude.
Her gracious surrender of a most excellent
lodging in favour of a stranger who would
be incapable of offering the least resistance
if a dispute arose proves the great immunity
which the Osmia enjoys in the home of the
worker whom she exploits. The common
and peaceful swarming of the Mason-bee of
269

The Mason-bees

the Sheds and the two cell-borrowing Osmiae
proves it in a still more positive fashion.
There is never a fight for the acquisition of
another's goods or the defence of one's own
property; never a brawl between Osmiae and
Masons. Robber and robbed live on the most
neighbourly terms. The Osmia considers
herself at home; and the other does nothing
to undeceive her. If the parasites, so deadly
to the workers, move about in their very
ranks with impunity, without arousing the
faintest excitement, an equally complete in-
difference must be shown by the dispossessed
owners to the presence of the usurpers in their
old homes. I should be greatly put to it if
I were asked to reconcile this calmness on the
part of the expropriated one with the ruthless
competition that is said to sway the world.
Fashioned so as to instal herself in the
Mason's property, the Osmia meets with a
peaceful reception from her. My feeble eyes
can see no further.

I have named the provision-thieves, the
grub-murderers and the house-grabbers who
levy tribute on the Mason-bee. Does that
end the list? Not at all. The old nests are
cities of the dead. They contain Bees who,

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

on achieving the perfect state, were unable to
open the exit-door through the cement and
who withered in their cells; they contain dead
larvs, turned into black, brittle cylinders; un-
touched provisions, both mouldy and fresh,
on which the egg has come to grief; tattered
cocoons; shreds of skins; relics of the trans-
formation.

If we remove the nest of the Chalicodoma
of the Sheds from its tile — a nest sometimes
quite eight inches thick — we find live inhabi-
tants only in a thin outer layer. All the re-
mainder, the catacombs of past generations, is
but a horrible heap of dead, shrivelled,
ruined, decomposed things. Into this sub-
stratum of the ancient city the unreleased
Bees, the untransformed larvae fall as dust;
here the honey-stores of old go sour, here the
uneaten provisions are reduced to mould.

Three undertakers, all members of the
Beetle tribe, a Clerus, a Ptinus and an An-
threnus, batten on these remains. The larvae
of the Anthrenus and the Ptinus gnaw the
ashes of the corpses; the larva of the Clerus,
with the black head and the rest of its body
a pretty pink, appeared to me to be breaking
into the old jam-pots filled with rancid honey.
271

The Mason-bees

The perfect insect itself, garbed in vermilion
with blue ornaments, is fairly common on the
surface of the clay slabs during the working
season, strolling leisurely through the yard to
taste here and there the drops of honey ooz-
ing from some cracked pot. Notwithstand-
ing his showy livery, so unlike the workers'
sombre frieze, the Chalicodomae leave him in
peace, as though they recognized in him the
scavenger whose duty it is to keep the sewers
wholesome.

Ravaged by the passing years, the Mason's
home at last falls into ruin and becomes a
hovel. Exposed as it is to the direct action
of wind and weather, the dome built upon a
pebble chips and cracks. To repair it would
be too irksome, nor would that restore the
original solidity of the shaky foundation.
Better protected by the covering of a roof,
the city of the sheds resists longer, without,
however, escaping eventual decay. The
storeys which each generation adds to those
in which it was born increase the thickness
and the weight of the edifice in alarming
proportions. The moisture of the tile filters
into the oldest layers, wrecks the foundations
and threatens the nest with a speedy fall. It
2:2.

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

IS time to abandon for good the house with
its cracks and rents.

Thereupon the crumbling apartments, on
the pebble as well as on the tile, become the
home of a camp of gypsies, who are not par-
ticular where they find a shelter. The shape-
less hovel, reduced to a fragment of a wall,
finds occupants, for the Mason's work must
be exploited to the utmost limits of possi-
bility. In the blind alleys, all that remains of
the former cells. Spiders weave a white-satin
screen, behind which they lie in wait for the
passing game. In nooks which they repair
in summary fashion with earthen embank-
ments or with clay partitions. Hunting-wasps,
Pompili and Tripoxyla, store up small mem-
bers of the Spider tribe, including sometimes
the Weaving-spiders who live inside the same
ruins.

I have said nothing yet of the Chalicodoma
of the Shrubs. My silence is not due to negli-
gence, but to the circumstance that I am al-
most destitute of facts relating to her para-
sites. Of the many nests which I have
opened In order to study their inhabitants,
only one so far has been invaded by strangers.
This nest, the size of a large walnut, was
273

The Mason-bees

fixed on a pomegranate-branch. It comprised
eight cells, of which seven were occupied by
the Chalicodoma and the eighth by a little
Chalcis, the plague of a whole host of the
Bee-tribe. Apart from this instance, which
was not a very serious case, I have seen
nothing. In those aerial nests, swinging at the
end of a twig, not a Dioxys, a Stelis, an
Anthrax, a Leucospis, those dread ravagers
of the other two Masons; never any Osmiae,
Megachiles or Anthidia, those lodgers in the
old buildings.

The absence of the latter is easily ex-
plained. The Chalicodoma's masonry does
not last long on its frail support. The win-
ter winds, when the shelter of the foliage
has disappeared, must easily break the twig,
which is little thicker than a straw and liable
to give way by reason of its heavy burden.
Threatened with an early fall, if it is not al-
ready on the ground, last year's dwelling is
not restored to serve the needs of the present
generation. The same nest does not serve
twice; and this does away with the Osmiae
and with their rivals in the art of utilizing
old cells.

The elucidation of this point does not re-
274

The Tribulations of the Mason-bee

move the obscurity of the next. I can see
nothing to account for the absence or at least
the extreme rareness of usurpers of provisions
and consumers of grubs, both of whom are
very Indifferent to the new or old conditions
of the nest, so long as the cells are well
stocked. Can It be that the lofty position of
the edifice and the shaky support of the
branch arouse distrust In the DIoxys and
other malefactors? In the absence of a bet-
ter explanation, I am needs content to leave
It at that.

If my Idea is not an empty fancy, we must
admit that the Challcodoma of the Shrubs
was singularly well-Inspired In building in
mid-air. You have seen of what misfortunes
the other two are victims. If I take a census
of the population of a tile, many a time I find
the DIoxys and the Mason-bee in almost
equal proportions. The parasite has wiped
out half the colony. To complete the disas-
ter, It Is not unusual for the grub-eaters, the
Leucospis and her rival, the pygmy Chalcldid,
to have decimated the other half. I say no-
thing of Anthrax sinuata, whom I sometimes
see coming from the nests of the Challco-
doma of the Sheds; her larva preys on the
27s

The Mason-bees

Three-horned Osmla, the Mason-bee's visi-
tor.

All solitary though she be on her boulder,
which would seem the proper thing to keep
away exploiters, the scourge of dense popu-
lations, the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles is no
less sorely tried. My notes abound in cases
such as the following: of the nine cells in one
dome, three are occupied by the Anthrax, two
by the Leucospis, two by the Stelis, one by the
Chalcidid and the ninth by the Mason. It is
as though the four miscreants had joined
forces for the massacre: the whole of the
Bee's family . has disappeared, all but one
young mother saved from the disaster by her
position in the centre of the citadel. I have
sometimes stuffed my pockets with nests re-
moved from their pebbles without finding a
single one that has not been violated by one
or other of the malefactors and oftener still
by several of them at a time. It is almost
an event for me to find a nest intact. After
these funereal records, I am haunted by a
gloomy thought: the weal of one means the
woe of another.

276

CHAPTER XI

THE LEUCOSPES^

LET US visit the nests of Chalicodoma mu-
raria in July, detaching them from their
pebbles with a sideward blow, as I explained
when telling the story of the Anthrax. The
Mason-bee's cocoons with two inhabitants,
one devouring, the other in process of being
devoured, are numerous enough to allow me
to gather some dozens in the course of a morn-
ing, before the sun becomes unbearably hot.
We will give a smart tap to the flints so as to
loosen the clay domes, wrap these up in news-
papers, fill our box and go home as fast as
we can, for the air will soon be as fiery as the
devil's kitchen.

Inspection, which is easier in the shade In-
doors, soon tells us that, though the devoured
Is always the wretched Mason-bee, the de-
vourer belongs to two different species. In

^This chapter should be read in conjunction with the
essays entitled The Anthrax and Larval Dimorphism,
forming chaps, ii. and iv. of The Life of the Fly. — Trans-
lator's Note,

277

The Mason-bees

the one case, the cylindrical form, the creamy-
white colouring and the little nipple constitu-
ting the head reveal to us the larva of the An-
thrax, which does not concern us at present;
in the other, the general structure and appear-
ance betray the grub of some Hymenopteron.
The Mason's second exterminator is, in fact,
a Leucospis {Leucospis gigas, Fab.), a mag-
nificent insect, striped black and yellow, with
an abdomen rounded at the end and hollowed
out, as is also the back, into a groove to con-
tain a long rapier, as slender as a horsehair,
which the creature unsheathes and drives
through the mortar right into the cell where
is proposes to establish its egg. Before occu-
rring ourselves with its capacities as an inocu-
lator, let us learn how its larva lives in the
invaded cell.

It is a hairless, legless, sightless grub, easily
confused, by unexperienced eyes, with that of
various honey-gathering Hymenoptera. Its
most visible characteristics consist of a colour-
ing like rancid butter, a shiny and as it were
oily skin and a segmentation accentuated by a
series of marked swellings, so that, when
looked at from the side, the back is very
plainly indented. When at rest, the larva is
278

The Leucospes

like a bow bending round at one point. It is
made up of thirteen segments, including the
head. This head, which is very small com-
pared with the rest of the body, displays no
mouth-part under the lens; at most you see a
faint red streak, which calls for the miscro-
scope. You then distinguish two delicate man-
dibles, very short and fashioned into a sharp
point. A small round mouth, with a fine
piercer on the right and left, is all that the
powerful instrument reveals. As for my best
single magnifying-glasses, they show me no-
thing at all. On the other hand, we can quite
easily, without arming the eye with a lens,
perceive the mouth-apparatus — and particu-
larly the mandibles — of either a honey-eater,
such as an Osmia, Chalicodoma or Megachile,
or a game-eater, such as a Scolia, Ammophila
or Bembex. All these possess stout pincers,
capable of gripping, grinding and tearing.
Then what is the purpose of the Leucospis'
invisible implements? His method of con-
suming will tell us.

Like his prototype, the Anthrax, the Leu-
cospis does not eat the Chalicodoma-grub,
that is to say, he does not break it up into
mouthfuls; he drains it without opening it and
279

The Mason-bees

digging into its vitals. In him again we see
exemplified that marvellous art which consists
in feeding on the victim without killing it until
the meal is over, so as always to have a por-
tion of fresh meat. With its mouth assidu-
ously applied to the unhappy creature's skin,
the lethal grub fills itself and waxes fat, while
the fostering larva collapses and shrivels, re-
taining just enough life, however, to resist de-
composition. All that remains of the de-
canted corpse is the skin, which, when soft-
ened In water and blown out, swells Into a
balloon without the least escape of gas, thus
proving the continuity of the Integument. All
the same, the apparently unpunctured bladder
has lost its contents. It is a repetition of what
the Anthrax has shown us, with this difference,
that the Leucospis seems not so well skilled
in the delicate work of absorbing the victim.
Instead of the clean white granule which is
the sole residue when the Fly has finished her
joint, the insect with the long probe has a
plateful of leavings, not seldom soiled with
the brownish tinge of food that has gone bad.
It would seem that, towards the end, the act
of consumption becomes more savage and does
not disdain dead meat. I also notice that the
280

The Leucospes

Leucospis is not able to get up from dinner
or to sit down to it again as readily as the
Anthrax. I have sometimes to tease him with
the point of a hair-pencil in order to make
him let go; and, once he has left the joint, he
hesitates a little before putting his mouth to
it again. His adhesion is not the mere result
of a kiss like that of a cupping-glass; It can
only be explained by hooks that need relea-
sing.

I now see the use of the microscopic man-
dibles. Those two delicate spikes are inca-
pable of chewing anything, but they may very
well serve to pierce the epidermis with an
aperture smaller than that made by the finest
needle; and it is through this puncture that
the Leucospis sucks the juices of his prey.
They are instruments made to perforate the
bag of fat which slowly, without suffering any
internal injury, is emptied through an open-
ing repeated here and there. The Anthrax'
cupping-glass is here replaced by piercers of
exceeding sharpness and so short that they
cannot hurt anything beyond the skin. Thus
do we see in operation, with a different sort
of implement, that wise system which keeps
the provisions fresh for the consumer.
2S1

The Mason-bees

It IS hardly necessary to say, to those who
have read the story of the Anthrax, that this
kind of feeding would be impossible with a
victim whose tissues possessed their final
hardness. The Mason-bee's grub is therefore
emptied by the Leucospis' larva while it is in
a semifluid state and deep in the torpor of the
nymphosis. The last fortnight in July and
the first fortnight in August are the best times
to witness the repast, which I have seen go-
ing on for twelve or fourteen days. Later,
we find nothing in the Mason-bee's cocoon
except the Leucospis' larva, gloriously fat,
and, by its side, a sort of thin, rancid rasher,
the remains of the deceased wet-nurse.
Things then remain as they are until the hot
part of the following summer or at least un-
til the end of June.

Then appears the nymph, which teaches us
nothing striking; and at last the perfect in-
sect, whose hatching may be delayed until
August. Its exit from the Mason's fortress
has no likeness to the strange method em-
ployed by the Anthrax. Endowed witN "tout
mandibles, the perfect insect splits the ceiling
of its abode by itself without much difficulty.
At the time of Its deliverance, the Mason-
282

The Leucospes

bees, who work in May, have long disap-
peared. The nests on the pebbles are all
closed, the provisioning is finished, the larvae
are sleeping in their yellow cocoons. As the
old nests are utilized by the Mason so long as
they are not too much dilapidated, the dome
which has just been vacated by the Leucospis,
now more than a year old, has its other cells
occupied by the Bee's children. There is
here, without seeking farther, a fat living for
the Leucospis' offspring which she well knows
how to turn to profit. It depends but on her-
self to make the house In which she was born
into the residence of her family. Besides, If
she has a fancy for distant exploration, clay
domes abound In the harmas. The inocula-
tion of the eggs through the walls will begin
shortly. Before witnessing this curious per-
formance, let us examine the needle that Is to
effect it.

The Insect's abdomen Is hollowed, at the
top, Into a furrow that runs up to the base of
the thorax; the end, which Is broader and
rounded, has a narrow slit, which seems to
divide this region into two. The whole thing
suggests a pulley with a fine groove. When
at rest, the Inoculating-needle or ovipositor re-
283

The Mason-bees

mains packed in the slit and the furrow. The
delicate instrument thus almost completely en-
circles the abdomen. Underneath, on the
median line, we see a long, dark-brown scale,
pointed, keel-shaped, fixed by its base to the
first abdominal segment, with its sides pro-
longed into membranous wings which are fast-
ened tightly to the insect's flands. Its func-
tion is to protect the underlying region, a
soft-walled region in which the probe has its
source. It is a cuirass, a lid which protects
the delicate motor-machinery during periods
of inactivity but swings from back to front
and lifts when the implement has to be un-
sheathed and used.

We will now remove this lid with the scis-
sors, so as to have the whole apparatus before
our eyes, and then raise the ovipositor with
the point of a needle. The part that runs
along the back comes loose without the slight-
est difliculty, but the part embedded in the
groove at the end of the abdomen offers a re-
sistance that warns us of a complication
which we did not notice at first. The tool,
in fact, consists of three pieces, a central piece,
or inoculating-filament, and two side-pieces,
which together constitute a scabbard. The
284

The Leucospes

two latter are more substantial and are hol-
lowed out like the sides of a groove and, when
they are united, form a complete groove in
which the filament is sheathed. This bival-
vular scabbard adheres loosely to the dorsal
part; but, farther on, at the tip of the abdo-
men and under the belly, it can no longer be
detached, as its valves are welded to the ab-
dominal wall. Here, therefore, we find, be-
tween the two joined protecting parts, a sim-
ple trench in which the filament lies covered
up. As for this filament, it is easily extracted
from its sheath and released down to its base,
under the shield formed by the scale.

Seen under the magnifying-glass, it is a
round, stiff, horny thread, midway in thick-
ness between a human hair and a horse-hair.
Its tip is a little rough, pointed and bevelled
to some length down. The microscope be-
comes necessary if we would see its real struc-
ture, which is much less simple than it at first
appears. We perceive that the bevelled end-
part consists of a series of truncated cones,
fitting one into the other, with their wide base
slightly projecting. This arrangement pro-
duces a sort of file, a sort of rasp, with very
much blunted teeth. When pressed on the
285

The Mason-bees

slide, the thread divides Into four pieces of
unequal length. The two longer end In the
toothed bevel. They come together in a very
narrow groove, which receives the two other,
rather shorter pieces. These both end In a
point, which, however, is not toothed and
does not project as far as the final rasp. They
also unite to form a groove, which fits into the
groove of the other two, the whole constitu-
ting a complete channel or duct. Moreover,
the two shorter pieces, considered together,
can move, lengthwise. In the groove that re-
ceives them ; they can also move one over the
other, always lengthwise, so much so that, on
the slide of the microscope, their terminal
points are seldom situated on the same level.
If with our scissors we cut a piece of the
inoculating-thread from the living Insect and
examine the section under the magnlfylng-
glass, we shall see the Inner groove lengthen
out and project beyond the outer groove and
then go In again In turn, while from the
wound there oozes a tiny albuminous drop,
doubtless proceeding from the liquid that
gives the egg the singular appendage to which
we shall come presently. By means of these
longitudinal movements of the Inner trench
286

The Leucospes

inside the outer trench and of the shding, one
over the other, of the two portions of the
former, the egg can be dispatched to the end
of the ovipositor notwithstanding the absence
of any muscular contraction, which is impd^-
sible in a horny conduit.

We have only to press the upper surface of
the abdomen to see it disjoint itself from the
first segment, as though the insect had been
cut almost in two at that point. A wide gap
or hiatus appears between the first and second
rings; and, under a thin membrane, the base
of the ovipositor bulges out, bent back into a
stout hook. Here the filament passes through
the insect from end to end and emerges un-
derneath. Its issue is therefore near the base
of the abdomen, instead of at the tip, as usual.
This curious arrangement has the effect of
shortening the lever-arm of the ovipositor and
bringing the starting-point of the filament
nearer to the fulcrum, namely, the legs of the
insect, and of thus assisting the difficult task
of inoculation by making the most of the ef-
fort expended.

To sum up, the ovipositor when at rest
goes round the abdomen. Starting at the
base, on the lower surface, it runs round the
2S7

The Mason-bees

belly from front to back and then returns
from back to front on the upper surface,
where it ends at almost the same level as its
starting-point. Its length is 14 millimetres.^
This fixes the limit of the depth which the
probe is able to reach in the Mason-bee's
nests.

One last word on the Leucospis' weapon.
In the dying insect, beheaded, stripped of
legs and wings, with a pin stuck through its
body, the sides of the fissure containing the
inoculating-thread quiver violently, as if the
belly were going to open, divide in two along
the median line and then reunite its two
halves.' The thread itself gives convulsive
tremblings; it comes out of its scabbard, goes
back and slips out again. It is as though the
laying-implement could not persuade itself to
die before accomplishing its mission. The in-
sect's supreme aim is the egg; and, so long as
the least spark of life remains. It makes dying
efforts to lay.

Leucospis gigas exploits the nests of the
Mason-bee of the Pebbles and the Mason-
bee of the Sheds with equal zest. To observe

1.546 inch. — Translator's Note.
288

The Leucospes

the insertion of the egg at my ease and to
watch the operator at work over and over
again, I gave the preference to the last-named
Mason, whose nests, removed from the neigh-
bouring roofs by my orders, have hung for
some years in the arch of my basement.
These clay hives fastened to tiles supply me
with fresh records each summer. I am much
indebted to them in the matter of the Leucos-
pis' life-history.

By way of comparison with what took
place under my roof, I used to observe the
same scenes on the pebbles of the surrounding
waste-lands. My excursions, alas, did not all
reward my zeal, which zeal was not without
merit in the merciless sunshine; but still, at
rare intervals, I succeeded in seeing some Leu-
cospis digging her probe into the mortar
dome. Lying flat on the ground, from the
beginning to the end of the operation, which
sometimes lasted for hours, I closely watched
the insect in its every movement, while my
Dog, weary of being out of doors in that
scorching heat, would discreetly retire from
the fray and, with his tail between his legs
and his tongue hanging out, go home and
stretch himself at full length on the cool tiles

The Mason-bees

of the hall. How wise he was to scorn this
pebble-gazing! I would come in half-roasted,
as brown as a berry, to find my friend Bull
wedged Into a corner, his back to the wall,
sprawling on all fours, while, with heaving
sides, he panted forth the last sprays of steam
from his overheated interior. Yes, he was
much better-advised to return as fast as he
could to the shade of the house. Why does
man want to know things? Why is he not in-
different to them, with the lofty philosophy
of the animals? What interest can anything
have for us that does not fill our stomachs?
What is the use of learning? What is the
use of truth, when profit is all that matters?
Why am I — the descendant, so they tell me,
of some tertiary Baboon — afflicted with the
passion for knowledge from which Bull, my
friend and companion, is exempt? Why . . .
oh, were have I got to? I was going In,
wasn't I, with a splitting headache? Quick,
let us get back to our subject!

It was in the first week in July that I saw
the inoculation begin on my Chalicodoma si-
cilia nests. The parasite Is at her task In the
hottest part of the day, close on three
o'clock In the afternoon; and work goes on
290

The Leucospes

almost to the end of the month, decreasing
gradually in activity. I count as many as
twelve Leucospes at a time on the most
thickly-populated pair of tiles. The insect
slowly and awkwardly explores the nests. It
feels the surface with its antennae, which are
bent at a right angle after the first joint.
Then, motionless, with bent head, it seems to
meditate and to debate within itself on the
fitness of the spot. Is it here or somewhere
else that the coveted larva lies? There Is
nothing outside, absolutely nothing, to tell us.
It is a stony expanse, bumpy but yet very uni-
form in appearance, for the cells have disap-
peared under a layer of plaster, a work of
public interest to which the whole swarm de-
votes Its last days. If I myself, with my long
experience, had to decide upon the suitable
point, even If I were at liberty to make use
of a lens for examining the mortar grain by
grain and to auscultate the surface In order to
gather information from the sound emitted,
I should decline the job, persuaded In ad-
vance that I should fail nine times out of ten
and only succeed by chance.

Where my discernment, aided by reason
and my optical contrivances, fails, the insect,
291

The Mason-bees

guided by the wands of its antennae, never
blunders. Its choice is made. See it un-
sheathing its long instrument. The probe
points normally towards the surface and oc-
cupies nearly the central spot between the two
middle-legs. A wide dislocation appears on
the back, between the first and second seg^
ments of the abdomen; and the base of the
instrument swells like a bladder through this
opening, while the point strives to penetrate
the hard clay. The amount of energy ex-
pended is shown by the way in which the
bladder quivers. At every moment we ex-
pect to see the frail membrane burst with the
violence of the effort. But it does not give
way; and the wire goes deeper and deeper.

Raising itself high on its legs, to give free
play to its apparatus, the insect remains mo-
tionless, the only sign of its arduous labours
being a slight vibration. I see some perfora-
tors who have finished operating in a quarter
of an hour. These are the quickest at the
business. They have been lucky enough to
come across a wall which is less thick and less
hard than usual, I see others who spend as
many as three hours on a single operation,
three long hours of patient watching for me,
292

The Leucospes

in my anxiety to follow the whole perform-
ance to the end, three long hours of immo-
bility for the insect, which is even more an-
xious to make sure of board and lodging for
its egg. But then is it not a task of the ut-
most difficulty to introduce a hair into the
thickness of a stone? To us, with all the dex-
terity of our fingers, it would be impossible;
to the insect, which simply pushes with its
belly, it is just hard work.

Notwithstanding the resistance of the sub-
stance traversed, the Leucospis perseveres,
certain of succeeding; and she does succeed,
although 1 am still unable to understand her
success. The material through which the
probe has to penetrate is not a porous sub-
stance; it is homogeneous and compact, like
our hardened cement. In vain do I direct my
attention to the exact point where the instru-
ment is at work; I see no fissure, no opening
that can facilitate access. A miner's drill
penetrates the rock only by pulverizing It.
This method is not admissible here; the ex-
treme delicacy of the instrument is opposed
to it. The frail stem requires, so it seems to
me, a ready-made way, a crevice through
which it can slip ; but this crevice I have never
293

The Mason-bees

been able to discover. What about a dissol-
ving-fluid which would soften the mortar un-
der the point of the ovipositor? No, for I
see not a trace of humidity around the point
where the thread is at work. I fall back
upon a fissure, a lack of continuity somewhere,
although my examination fails to discover any
on the Mason-bee's nest. I was better served
in another case. Leucopsis dorsigera, Fab.,
settles her eggs on the larva of the Diadem
Anthidium, who sometimes makes her nest In
reed-stumps. I have repeatedly seen her In-
serting her auger through a slight rupture in
the channel. As the wall was different, wood
in the latter case and mortar In the former,
perhaps It will be best to look upon the mat-
ter as a mystery.

My sedulous attendance, during the best
part of July, In front of the tiles hanging
from the walls of the arch, allowed me to
reckon the inoculations. Each time that the
insect, on finishing the operation, removed Its
probe, I marked In pencil the exact point at
which the instrument was withdrawn; and I
wrote down the date beside it. This Inform-
ation was to be utilized when the Leucospis
finished her labours.

294

The Leucospes

When the perforators are gone, I proceed
with my examination of the nests, covered
with my hieroglyphics, the pencilled notes.
One result, one which I fully expected, com-
pensates me straightway for all my weary
waitings. Under each spot marked in black,
under each spot whence I saw the ovipositor
withdrawn, I always find a cell, with not a
single exception. And yet there are intervals
of solid stone between the cells : the partition-
walls alone would account for some. More-
over, the compartments, which are very ir-
regularly disposed by a swarm of toilers who
all work in their own sweet way, have great
irregular cavities between them, which end
by being filled up with the general plastering
of the nest. The result of this arrangement
is that the massive portions cover almost the
same space as the hollow portions. There is
nothing outside to show whether the under-
lying regions are full or empty. It is quite im-
possible for me to decide if, by digging
straight down, I shall come to a hollow cell
or to a solid wall.

But the insect makes no mistake: the ex-
cavations under my pencil-marks bear witness
to that; it always directs its apparatus to-

295

The Mason-bees

wards the hollow of a cell. How Is it apprised
whether the part below is empty or full? Its
organs of information are undoubtedly the
antennae, which feel the ground. They are
two fingers of unparalleled delicacy, which
pry into the basement by tapping on the part
above it. Then what do those puzzling or-
gans perceive? A smell? Not at all; I al-
ways had my doubts of that and now I am
certain of the contrary, after what I shall de-
scribe in a moment. Do they perceive a
sound? Are we to treat them as a superior
kind of microphone, capable of collecting the
infinitesimal echoes of what is full and the
reverberations of what is empty? It is an at-
tractive idea, but unfortunately the antennae
play their part equally well on a host of oc-
casions when there are no vaults to reverbe-
rate. We know nothing and are perhaps de-
stined never to know anything of the real
value of the antennal sense, to which we have
nothing analogous; but, though it is impos-
sible for us to say what it does perceive, we
are at least able to recognize to some extent
what it does not perceive and, in particular,
to deny it the faculty of smell.

As a matter of fact, I notice, with extreme
296

The Leucospes

surprise, that the great majority of the cells
visited by the Leucospis' probe do not con-
tain the one thing which the insect is seeking,
namely, the young larva of the Mason-bee en-
closed in its cocoon. Their contents consists
of the refuge so often met with in old Chali-
codoma-nests : liquid honey left unemployed,
because the egg has perished; spoilt provi-
sions, sometimes mildewed, or sometimes a
tarry mass; a dead larva, stiffened into a
brown cylinder; the shrivelled corpse of a per-
fect insect, which lacked the strength to effect
Its deliverance; dust and rubbish which has
come from the exit-window afterwards closed
up by the outer coating of plaster. The odori-
ferous effluvia that can emanate from these
relics certainly possess very diverse charac-
ters. A sense of smell with any subtlety at all
would not be deceived by this stuff, sour,
"high," musty or tarry as the case may be;
each compartment, according to its contents,
has a special aroma, which we might or might
not be able to perceive; and this aroma most
certainly bears no resemblance to that which
we may assume the much-desired fresh larva
to possess. If nevertheless the Leucospis does
not distinguish between these various cells
297

The Mason-bees

and drives the probe into all of them Indiffer-
ently, is this not an evident proof that smell
is no guide whatever to her in her search?
Other considerations, when I was treating of
the Hairy Ammophila, enabled me to assert
that the antennae have no olfactory powers.
To-day, the frequent mistakes of the Leucos-
pls, whose antennae are nevertheless constantly
exploring the surface, make this conclusion
absolutely certain.

The perforator of clay nests has, so It seems
to me, delivered us from an old physiological
fallacy. She would deserve studying, if for
no other result than this; but her interest Is
far from being exhausted. Let us look at her
from another point of view, whose full Im-
portance will not be apparent until the end;
let us speak of something which I was very
far from suspecting when I was so assidu-
ously watching the nests of my Mason-
bees.

The same cell can receive the Leucospis'
probe a number of times, at Intervals of se-
veral days. I have said how I used to mark
in black the exact place at which the laying-
implement had entered and how I wrote the
date of the operation beside it. Well, at
298

The Leucospes

many of these already visited spots, concern-
ing which I possessed the most authentic docu-
ments, I saw the insect return a second, a
third and even a fourth time, either on the
same day or some while after, and drive its
inoculating-thread in again, at precisely the
same place, as though nothing had happened.
Was it the same individual repeating her
operation in a cell which she had visited be-
fore but forgotten, or different individuals
coming one after the other to lay an egg in a
compartment thought to be unoccupied? I
cannot say, having neglected to mark the
operators, for fear of disturbing them.

As there is nothing, except the mark of my
pencil, a mark devoid of meaning to the in-
sect, to indicate that the auger has already
been at work there, it may easily happen that
the same operator, finding under her feet a
spot already exploited by herself but effaced
from her memory, repeats the thrust of her
tool in a compartment which she believes her-
self to be discovering for the first time. How-
ever retentive its memory for places may be.
we cannot admit that the insect rememberc
for weeks on end, as well as point by point,
the topography of a nest covering a surface
299

The Mason-bees

of some square yards. Its recollections, if it
have any, serve it badly; the outward appear-
ance gives it no information; and its drill en-
ters wherever it may happen to discover a
cell, at points that have already perhaps been
pierced several times over.

It may also happen — and this appears to
me the most frequent case — that one exploiter
of a cell is succeeded by a second, a third, a
fourth and others still, all fired with the new-
comer's zeal because their predecessors have
left no trace of their passage. In one way
or another, the same cell is exposed to mani-
fold layings, though its contents, the Chali-
codoma-grub, be only the bare ration of a
single Leucospis-grub.

These reiterated borings are not at all rare :
I noted a score of them on my tiles; and, in
the case of some cells, the operation was re-
peated before my eyes as often as four times.
Nothing tells us that this number was not
exceeded in my absence. The little that I ob-
served prevents me from fixing any limit.
And now a momentous question arises : is the
egg really laid each time that the probe enters
a cell? I can see not the slightest excuse for
supposing the contrary. The ovipositor, be-
300

The Leucospes

cause of Its horny nature, can have but a very
dull sense of touch. The insect is only ap-
prised of the contents of the cell by the end
of that long horse-hair, a not very trust-
worthy witness, I should imagine. The ab-
sence of resistance tells it that it has reached
an empty space; and this is probably the only
information that the insensible implement can
supply. The drill boring through the rock
cannot tell the miner anything about the con-
tents of the cavern which it has entered ; and
the case must be the same with the rigid fila-
ment of the Leucospes.

Now that it has reached its goal, what does
the cell contain? Mildewed honey, dust and
rubbish, a shrivelled larva, or a larva in
proper condition? Above all, does it already
contain an egg? This last question calls for
a definite answer, but as a matter of fact it is
impossible for the insect to learn anything
from a horse-hair on that most delicate mat-
ter, the presence or absence of an egg, a mere
atom of a thing, in that vast apartment.
Even admitting some sense of touch at the
end of the drill, one insuperable difficulty
would always remain: that of finding the ex-
act spot where the tiny speck lies in those
301

The Mason-bees

spacious and mysterious regions. I go so far
as to believe that the ovipositor tells the in-
sect nothing, or at any rate very little, of the
inside of the cell, whether propitious or not to
the development of the germ. Perhaps each
thrust of the instrument, provided that it
meets with no resistance from solid matter,
lays the egg, to whose lot there falls at one
time good, wholesome food, at another mere
refuse.

These anomalies call for more conclusive
proofs than the rough deductions drawn from
the nature of the horny ovipositor. We must
ascertain In a direct fashion whether the cell
into which the auger has been driven several
times over actually contains several occupants
In addition to the larva of the Mason-bee.
When the Leucospes had finished their bo-
rings, I waited a few days longer so as to give
the young grubs time to develop a little, which
would make my examination easier. I then
moved the tiles to the table in my study, in
order to Investigate their secrets with the
most scrupulous care. And here such a dis-
appointment as I have rarely known awaited
me. The cells which I had seen, actually seen,
with my own eyes, pierced by the probe two
302

The Leucospes

or three or even four times, contained but one
Leucospis-grub, one alone, eating away at Its
Challcodoma. Others, which had also been
repeatedly probed, contained spoilt remnants,
but never a Leucospis. O holy patience, I
entreat thee, give me the courage to begin
again! Dispel the darkness and deliver me
from doubt!

I begin again. The Leucospis-grub is fa-
miliar to me; I can recognize it, without the
possibility of a mistake, in the nests of both
the Challcodoma of the Pebbles and the
Challcodoma of the Sheds. All through the
winter, I rush about, getting my nests from
the roofs of old sheds and the pebbles of the
waste-lands; I stuff my pockets with them, fill
my box, load Favier's knapsack; I collect
enough to litter all the tables in my study;
and, when it is too cold out of doors, when
the biting mistral blows, I tear open the fine
silk of the cocoons to discover the inhabitant.
Most of them contain the Mason in the per-
fect state; others give me the larva of the
Anthrax; others — very numerous, these — give
me the larva of the Leucospis. And this last
is alone, always alone, invariably alone. The
whole thing is utterly incomprehensible when
303

The Mason-bees

one knows, as I knew, how many times the
probe entered those cells.

My perplexity only increases when, on the
return of summer, I witness for the second
time theXeucospis' repeated operations on the
same cells and for the second time find a sin-
gle larva in the compartments which have
been bored several times over. Shall I then
be forced to accept that the auger is able to
recognize the cells already containing an egg
and that it thenceforth refrains from laying
there? Must I admit an extraordinary sense
of touch in that bit of horse-hair, or even bet-
ter, a sort of divination which declares where
the egg lies without having to touch it? But
I am raving! There is certainly something
that escapes me; and the obscurity of the
problem is simply due to my Incomplete in-
formation. O patience, supreme virtue of
the observer, come to my aid once more ! I
must begin all over again for the third time.

Until now, my investigations have been
made some time after the laying, at a period
when the larva is at least fairly developed.
Who knows? Something perhaps happens,
at the very commencement of infancy, that
may mislead me afterwards. I must apply to
304

The Leucospes

the egg itself if I would learn the secret which
the grub will not reveal. I therefore resume
my observations in the first fortnight of July,
when the Leucospes are beginning to visit
busily both Mason-bees' nests. The pebbles
in the waste-lands supply me with plenty of
buildings of the Chalicodoma of the Walls;
the byres scattered here and there in the fields
give me, under their dilapidated roofs, in
fragments broken off with the chisel, the edi-
fices of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I am
anxious not to complete the destruction of my
home hives, already so sorely tried by my ex-
periments ; they have taught me much and can
teach me more. Alien colonies, picked up
more or less everywhere, provide me with my
booty. With my lens in one hand and my
forceps in the other, I go through my collec-
tion on the sarhe day, with the prudence and
care which only the laboratory-table permits.
The results at first fall far short of my ex-
pectations. I see nothing that I have not seen
before. I make fresh expeditions, after a
few days' interval; I bring back fresh loads
of lumps of mortar, until at last fortune
smiles upon me.

Reason was not at fault. Each thrust
305

The Mason-bees

means the laying of an egg when the probe
reaches the cell. Here is a cocoon of the
Mason-bee of the Pebbles with an egg side by
side with the Chalicodoma-grub. But what
a curious egg! Never have my eyes beheld
the like; and then is it really the egg of the
Leucospis? Great was my apprehension.
But I breathed again when I found, a couple
of weeks later, that the egg had become the
larva with which I was familiar. Those co-
coons with a single egg are as numerous as I
can wish; they exceed my wishes: my little
glass receptacles are too few to hold them.

And here are others, more precious ones
still, with manifold layings. I find plenty
with two eggs; I find some with three or
four; the best-colonized offer me as many as
five. And, to crown my delight, the joy of
the seeker to whom success comes at the last
moment, when he is on the verge of despair,
here again, duly furnished with an egg, is a
sterile cocoon, that is to say, one containing
only a shrivelled and decaying larva. All my
suspicions are confirmed, down to the most
inconsequent : the egg housed with a mass of
putrefaction

The nests of the Mason-bee of the Walls
306

The Leucospes

are the more regular In structure and are
easier to examine, because their base Is wide-
open once It Is separated from the supporting
pebble; and It was these which supplied me
with by far the greater part of my informa-
tion. Those of the Mason-bee of the Sheds
have to be chipped away with a hammer be-
fore one can inspect their cells, which are
heaped up anyhow; and they do not lend
themselves anything like so well to delicate
investigations, as they suffer both from the
shock and the Ill-treatment.

And now the thing Is done : it remains cert-
ain that the Leucospis' laying is exposed to
very exceptional dangers. She can entrust the
egg to sterile cells, without provisions fit to
use; she can establish several In the same cell,
though this cell contains nourishment for one
only. Whether they proceed from a single
Individual returning several times, by Inad-
vertence, to the same place, or are the work
of different Individuals unaware of the pre-
vious borings, these multiple layings are very
frequent, almost as much so as the normal
layings. The largest which I have noticed
consisted of five eggs, but we have no au-
thority for looking upon this number as an
307

The Mason-bees

outside limit. Who could say, when the per-
forators are numerous, to what lengths this
accumulation can go? I will set forth on
some future occasion how the ration of one
egg remains In reality the ration of one egg,
despite the multiplicity of banqueters.

I will end by describing the egg, which is
a white, opaque object, shaped like a much-
elongated oval. One of the ends is length-
ened out into a neck or pedicle, which is as
long as the egg proper. This neck is some-
what wrinkled, sinuous and as a rule consi-
derably curved. The whole thing is not at all
unlike certain gourds with an elongated
paunch and a snake-like neck. The total
length, pedicle and all, is about 3 millimetres.^
It is needless to say, after recognizing the
grub's manner of feeding, that this egg is not
laid inside the fostering larva. Yet, before
I knew the habits of the Leucospis, I would
readily have believed that every Hymenop-
teron armed with a long probe inserts her
eggs into the victim's sides, as the Ichneu-
mon-flies do to the Caterpillars. I mention
this for the benefit of any who may be under
the same erroneous impression.

^About .117 inch. — Translator's Note.
308

The Leucospes

The Leucospis' egg Is not even laid on the
Mason-bee's larva ; It Is hung by its bent pedi-
cle to the fibrous wall of the cocoon. When
I go to work very delicately, so as not to dis-
turb the arrangement In knocking the nest off
Its support, and then take out and open the
cocoon, I see the egg swinging from the silken
vault. But It takes very little to make It fall.
And so, most often, even though It be merely
the effect of the shock sustained when the
nest is removed from its pebble, I find the egg
detached from its suspension-point and lying
beside the larva, to which it never adheres in
any circumstances. The Leucospis' probe
does not penetrate beyond the cocoon tra-
versed; and the egg remains fastened to the
ceiling. In the crook of some silky thread, by
means of Its hooked pedicle.

309

INDEX

Amazon Ant (see Red
Ant) _

Ammophila, 213, 279

Amnwphila hirsuta {see
Hairy Ammophila)

Ant {see also Black Ant,
Red Ant), vii, 58,
133 "^ 152, 160, 192

Anthidium {see also Cot-
ton-bee, Diadem An-
thidium), 219, 226, 274

Anthophora {see also
Hairy-footed Antho-
phora), 18, 83, 194,
206-207, 211, 216

Anthrax {see also An-
thrax sinuata), 199,
210, 212, 264, 274, 276,
279-281, 303

Anthrax sinuata, 275

Anthrenus, 271

Ape, 220

Aphis, 160

B

Baboon, 290

Bastien, 4-5

Bee, passim

Bembex {see also Bemhex

rostrata), 59. 198, 205-

207, 210, 279
Bembex rostrata, 194-195
Black Ant, 134-135, i39

Blanchard, Emile, 8
Blue Osmia, 267
Bombylius, 196-199
Bumble-bee, 205, 219
Butterfly, 9 n

Cabbage - caterpillar, 200,
202

Cagliostro, 127

Carrier-pigeon, 40, 74, 102,
124-125, 127

Castelnau de la Porte,
Francis Comte de, 9

Cat, vii, 76, 88, 109-123,
126-127

Caterpillar {see also Cab-
bage-caterpillar, Grey
Worm, Processionary
Caterpillar, Spurge-
caterpillar), 190, 195-
196, 308

Cerceris {see also Great
Cerceris), 41, 51, 198,
212

Cerceris tuherculata {see
Great Cerceris)

Cetonia, 213

Chalcis, 274, 275-276

Chalicodoma {see Mason-
bee)

Chalicodoma muraria (see
Mason-bee of the
WaUs)

311

Index

Chalicodoma pyrenaica, C.
pyrrhopesa, C. rufi tar-
sis, L. sicula {see
Mason-bee of the
Sheds)

Chalicodoma riifesc ens
{see Mason-bee of the
Shrubs)

Giat, 203

Chrysis {sec also Parno-
Pes carnea, Stilbum
calens), 193-196, 203-
206, 210-213

Qenis, 207, 280

Coelyoxis, 219, 222

Common Lizard, 201-202

Common Wasp, 161-163

Cornelius Nepos, 2

Cotton-bee, vii

Cricket, 70

Crioceris, 208

Crocisa, 199, 205, 213

D

Darwin, Charles Robert,
73-75, 7^-77, 88, 95,
102-104, 109, 123, 127

Darwin, Erasmus, 161-163

Diadem Anthidium, 294

Dioxys, 207, 255, 256-257,
259-262, 274, 275

Dioxys cincta {see
Dioxys)

Dog, 94, 108, 289

Dufour, Jean Marie Leon,
10

Duhamel du Monceau,
Henri Louis, 32, 40

Durvy, Jean Victor, 112

E

Euclid, 3

Eumcnes, Amadei, 196-197

Eyed Lizard, 201

Fabre, Mile. Aglae, the
author's daughter, 49,
52, 118-119

Fabre, Mile. Antonia, the
author's daughter, 92-
94

Fabre, Mile. Claire, the
author's daughter, 119

Fabre, Mile. Lucie, the au-
thor's granddaughter,
139-140, 142

Favier, the author's fac-
totum, 76-77, 80, roi,
303

Fly, 31, 161-163, 190, 196-
199

Franklin, Benjamin, 248

Gad-fly, 195, 198, 206, 210-
211

Gnat, 179

Golden Wasp {see Chry-
sis)

Gold-fish, 122, 136

Grasshopper {see Green
Grasshopper)

Great Cerceris, 130, 132

Green Grasshopper, 203,
208

Grey Lizard, 204

Grey Worm, 129, 157

312

Index

H

Hairy Amraophila, 129,

157, 298
Hairv-footed Anthophora,

268
Halictus, vii, 19
Hive-bee, 43, 206
Huber, Frangois, 10

I

Ichneumon-fly, 133 n, 308

Lacordaire, Jean Theo-
dore, 162 n

Lamb, 216

Lark, 200, 201

Latreille's Osmia, 132, 165,
268

Leaf-cutter (sec Mega-
chile)

Leucospis, 209-210, 212,264,
277-309

Leucospis dorsigcra, 294

Leucospis gigas (see Leu-
cospis)

Le Vaillant, Frangois, 80-
81

Lion, 199

Lizard (sec Common Liz-
ard, Eyed Lizard,
Green Lizard)

Locust, 190, 198, 204, 208

Loriol, Dr., 114-115

Loriol, Mme., 115

Lucas, Pierre Hippolyte, 9

M
Macmillan & Co., Ltd., vii-
viii

Mademoiselle Mori, au-
thor of, vii, 31 «

Mantis (see Praying Man-
tis)

Martin, 40

Mason-bee (see also the
varieties below), pas-
sim

Mason-bee of the. Pebbles
(see Mason-bee of the
Walls)

Mason-bee of the Sheds,
11-17, 26-29, 48-55, 75-
108, 126-132, 165-167,
169-189, 214-215, 228-
239, 252, 257-262, 268-
273, 275, 288, 290-291,

294-30S, 307

Mason-bee of the Shrubs,
79 n, 273-275

Mason-bee of the Walls,
I, 8. 10-13, 17-28. 30-
48, 52, 56-72, 86, 132.
209, 223-226, 250-268,
276-284, 288, 302-307,

309.
Megachile, vii, 219, 222,

266-268, 274, 279
Megachile apicalis (see

Megachile)
Melecta, 194, 199, 205, 21 r,

213. 216
Meloe (see Oil-beetle)
Mesmer, 127
Miall, Bernard, 204 n
Monodontomerus cupreus,

264 n
Morawitz' Osmia, 267
Moth, 9 n
Mutilla, 192-193, 210-213,

248

313

Index

N
Napoleon III, the Em-
peror, 112 n
Newton, Sir Isaac, 73, 158

O

Oil-beetle, 213
Oryctes, 213

Osmia (see also the varie-
ties below), vii, 206,

256, 259, 261, 268-270,

274, 279
Osmia cyanea {see Blue

Osmia)
Osmia cyanoxantha, 266-

267
Osmia Latreillii {see La-

treille's Osmia)
Osmia Morazmtzi {see

Morawitz' Osmia)
Osmia iricornis {see

Three-horned Osmia)
Osmia tridentata {see

Three-pronged O s -

mia)
Ox, 80

P
Parnopes carnea, 194-195,

20*5

Perez, Professor Jean, 79n
Philanthus apivorus, 198,

205
Polycrqus rufescens {see

Red Ant)
Pompilus, 151-157, 273
Praying Mantis. 190, 204
Processionary Caterpillar,

. 137-138
Psithyrus, 205, 219
Ptinus, 271

R

Rabbit, 213

Reaumur, Rene Antoine

Ferchault de, i, 8, 10-

12, 31-32, 37, 39-40, 49
Red Ant, vii, 124-157
Republican (^see Social

Weaver-bird)
Resin-bee, vii
Rhinoceros-beetle {see

Oryctes)
Ringed Calicurgus {see

Pompilus)
Rodwell, Miss Frances,

viii
Rose-chafer {see Cetonia)

Sacred Beetle, 31

Sapyga punctata {see
Spotted Sapyga)

Saw-fly, 133 n

Scolia, 193, 211-212, 248,
279

Sheep, 248

Sicilian Mason-bee {see
Mason-bee of the
Sheds)

Social Bee {see Hive-
bee)

Social Wasp {see Com-
mon Wasp)

Social Weaver-bird, 80

Sphex {see also Yellow-
winged Sphex), 31,
162 n, 212

Spider. 9 n, 152-157, 190,

273
Spotted Sapyga, 248, 259,
261

314

Index

Spurge-caterpillar, 202
Stelis (see also Stelis na-

suta), 219, 274, 276
Stelis nasuta, 223-228, 238,

255-256
Stilbuin calens, 195-196
Swallow, 40, 124, 127, 203
Swift, 203

Tachina, 198, 204-205, 210-
211, 213

Tachytes, 198

Teixeira de Mattos, Alex-
ander, 6 n, 10 n, 31 n,
264 n

Three-horned Osmia, 132,
165, 239-248, 268, 276

Three-pronged Osmia,
245-248

Tiger, 199, 204

Tripoxylon, 273

Toussenel, Alphonse, 124-

Turnip-caterpillar, Turnip-
moth (see Grey
Worm)

W

Wagtail {see White Wag-
tail)

Warted Cerceris (^see
Great Cerceris)

Wasp (see also Common
Wasp), 79 n, 132-133.
152-156, 168, 190, 209,
222

Weevil, 130, 190, 198

White Wagtail, 20l

Wild Boar, 213

Wolf, 245, 248

Yellow-winged Sphex, 70

31S

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