Bramble-Bees and Others

ct, the characias of the Greeks, the jusclo of the Provencals, begins to lift its drooping inflorescence and discreetly opens a few sombre flowers. Here the first

often treacherous. A few days of soft skies and it becomes a glorious dome of white flowers, each twinkling with a roseate eye. The country, which st

worn enemy of strikes, who profits by the least lull of winter to find out if some rosemary is not beginning to open somewhere n

ust be red and red only. These are the first delegates despatched by the pollen-gleaners to ascertain the state of the season and attend the festival of the early blooms. 'Tis but a moment since they burst their cocoon, the winter abode: they have left their retreats in the crevices of the old walls; should the north wind blow and set the almond-tree shivering, they will hasten to return to them. Hail to you, O my dear Osmiae, who yearly, from the far end of the

and old galleries of Anthophorae and Chalicodomae. If these favourite haunts are lacking, then a hiding-place in the wall, a round hole in some bit of wood, the tube of a reed, the spiral of a dead Snail under a heap of stones are

f a drop of water. The Mason-bee gathers her cementing-dust in the most frequented and driest portions of the road; she wets it with a saliva which, in drying, gives it the consistency of stone. The two Osmiae who are the almond-tree's early visitors are no chemists: they know nothing of the makin

low perhaps, and then prepares a sort of green putty with which she builds her partitions and finally closes the entrance to the dwelling. When she settles in the spacious cells of the Masked Anthophora (Anthophora personata, ILLIG.), the entrance to the gallery, which is wide enoug

o two classes: one building compartments with mud, the other with a green-tinted vegetable putty. The first sectio

in the hope of finding Osmia-nests. My search has very seldom succeeded. The failure is easily explained. The partitions and the closing-plug of the Horned and of the Three-horned Osmia are made, as we have seen, of a sort of mud which water instantly reduces to pap. With the upright positio

en the Osmiae work, the canisses are indoors, in the silk-worm nurseries, where the Bee cannot take possession of them; in autumn, they are outside, exposing their layers of figs and peeled peaches to the sun; but by that time the Osmiae have

ings that I know her to occupy are disused Snail-shells, especially the house of the Common Snail (Helix aspersa). Let us go to the slope of the hills thick with olive-trees and inspect the little supporting-walls which are built of dry stones and face the south

h the remains of other victuals, an assortment of empty shells, sometimes plentiful enough to remind me of the heap of Snails which, cooked with spinach and eaten country-fashion on Christmas Eve, are flung away next day by the housewife. This gives the Three-horned Osmia a handsome collection of tenements; and she does not fail to profit by them. Then again, even

ess rich in varieties of houses. She seems to scorn empty shells. The only homes that I know

ncerning these details. Whatever worker prepare it, the putty is very much the same in appearance. When fresh, it is always a clear dark green. Later, especially in the parts exposed to the air, it changes, no doubt through fermentation, to the colour of dead leaves, to brown, to dull-yellow; and the leafy character of its origin is no longer apparent. But uniformity in the materials employed must not lead us to believe in uniform

r closing-plug is made of a stout concrete, consisting of fair-sized bits of gravel sunk in the green paste; but for the inner partitions she employs only unalloyed putty. As the outer door, si

, who has a more spacious spiral, all scattered at random in the grass, at the foot of the walls and of the sun-swept rocks, furnish her with her usual dwelling-house. Her drie

Snail, in whose shells I find her taking refuge in April when the north-wind blows. I a

al staircase of Bulimulus radiatus. It is a very elegant, but very small lodging, to say nothing of t

ious, with her naked red abdomen, appears to build her nest i

R.) settles in the Garden Snail's shell,

on-bee of the Pebbles, from the galleries dug in a roadside bank by the Colletes (A short-tongued Burrowing-bee known also as t

n in the old nests of the Mason-bee of the Pebbles,

her mandibles in dry bramble and sometimes in danewort. It mixes a few scrapings of perforated pith with the gr

ystery. She wants a dark retreat, hidden from the eye. I would like, nevertheless, to watch her in the privacy of her home and to witness her work with the same facility as if she were

d Osmia, who is very plentiful in my neighbourhood, where, together with Latreille's Osmia, she frequents in particular the monstrous nests of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I therefore thought out a scheme for making the Three-horned Osmia accept my study as her settlement and build her nests in glass tubes, through which I could easily watch the progress. To

m settle. Here there must be retreats of no matter what nature, but of a shape similar to that in which the Osmia delights. The first impressions of sight, which are the most long-lived of any, shall bring bac

f the Oil-beetles. (This study is not yet translated into English; but cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 and 4.-Translator's Note.) Later, at my request, a pupil and intimate friend of mine, M. Henri Devillario, president of the civil court at Carpentras, sends me a case of fragments broken off the ba

swarm entire liberty to go in and out as it pleases. The glass tubes and the reed-stumps are laid here and there, in fine disorder, close to the heap of cocoons and all in a horizontal position, for the Osmia will have nothing to do with upright reeds. The hatching of some of the Osmiae will

more sweeping, no more dusting. They might disturb the swarm and make it think that my hospitality was not to be trusted. I suspect that the maid, wounded in her self-esteem at seeing so much dust accumulating in the master's study, did not always respect my prohibitions and came in stealthily, now and again, to give a little sweep of the broom. At any rate, I came across a number of Osmiae who seemed to have been crushed under foot while taking a sunbath on the floor in front of the window. Perhaps it was I myself who committed the misdeed in a heedless moment. There is no great harm done, for the population is a numerous one; and,

loor, then shake the dust off their wings and fly away. I find them, opposite my window, in the refreshment-bar of the lilac-bush, whose branches bend with the weight of their scented panicles. Here the Bees get drun

ral times in succession. The suitors forthwith fall back; and they also, no doubt to keep up their dignity, execute savage mandibular grimaces. Then the beauty retires into the arbour and her wooers resume their places on the threshold. A fresh appearance of the female, who repeats the play with her jaws; a fresh r

of one another and form a pyramid of which each struggles to occupy the base by toppling over the favoured lover. He, however, is careful not to let go; he waits for the strife overhead to calm down; and, wh

ll; they hover in the window-recess, come inside, go to the reeds and give a glance at them, only to set off again and to return soon after. Thus do they learn to know their home, thus do they fix their birthplace in their memory. The village of our childhood is always a cherished spot, never to be effaced from our recollection. The Osmia's li

vided is too small; and I hasten to increase it. Snail-shells are recognized as excellent abodes, though deprived of the shelter of the stone-heap; old Chalicodoma-nests, down to those of the Chalicodoma of the Shrubs (Cf. "The Mason-bees": chapters 4 and 10.-Translator's Note.), whose cells are so small, are eagerly occupied. The late-comers, finding nothing else free, go and settle in the locks of my table-drawers. There are daring ones who make their way into half-open boxes containing ends of glass tubes in which I have stored my most rece

ject and tears it out; and then off she goes, in a desperate hurry, to dispose of it far away from the study. They are all alike, these ardent sweepers: in their excessive zeal, they fear lest they should block up the place with a speck of dust which they might drop in front of the new house. The glass tubes, which I

Nearly half an inch.-Translator's Note.); the narrowest measure six or seven. (About a quarter of an inch.-Translator's Note.) In the latter, if the bottom suit her, the Osmia sets to work bringing pollen and honey. If the bo

st big enough to allow of her passage. I imagine that, in a straitened gallery, the rubbing of her whole body against the sides gives the harvester a support for her brushing-work. In a spacious cylinder, this support fails her; and the Osmia

ch has a circular opening at the side of it, a sort of dog-hole through which the Osmia will proceed to knead the Bee-bread. When the victualling is finished and the egg laid upon the heap, the hole is closed and the filled-up partition becomes the bottom of the next cell. Then the same method is repeated, that is to say, in front of the just completed ceiling a second partition is bu

Osmia. Nothing could be prettier than the work of the last-named, who goes to the plants for her material and fashions a delicate sheet in which she cuts a graceful arch. The Chinaman partitions his house with paper screens; Latreille's Osmia divides hers with disks o

y-wall, which the diameter of the cylinder would not permit; she confines herself to putting up a frail circular pad of green putty, as though to limit, before any attempt at harvesting, the space to be occupied by the Bee-bread,

x the next ceiling at the proper distance. Then she resumes her work. Perhaps the measure was not correctly taken; perhaps her memory, a few seconds old, has already become muddled. The Bee once more ceases laying her plaster and again goes and touches the front wall with her forehead and the back wall with the tip of her abdomen. Looking at that body trembling with eagerness, extended to i

press, in which the mud wall is flattened and shaped. The mandibles tap and furnish mortar; the end of the abdomen also pats and gives brisk trowel-touches. This anal extremity is a builder's tool; I see it facing the mandibles on the other side of the partition, kneading and smoothing it all over, flattening the little lump of cla

mals! To find geometry, the surveyor's art, in an Osmia's tiny brain! An insect that begins by taking the measurements of the room to be constructed, just as any master-builder mig

o-day! Very well, my masters; the magnificent argument with which I am supplying you lacks but one little detail, the merest trifle: truth!

istances between the partitions, which are placed almost at right angles to the axis of the cylinder. It is these distances which fix the size of the chambers, which, with a similar base, have different heights and consequently unequal holding-capacities. The bottom

8 inch.-Translator's Note.), inside measurement, contains ten cells. The five lower ones, beginnin

29,.468,.624,.507,.429

es measure betwee

273,.195,.234,.273 inc

the inside contains fifteen cells; and the respective distances b

.507,.468,.468, .351,.351,.429,.312,.312,.273,.273

ral characteristic of being closer to one another the nearer they are to the orifice. A reed of five millimetre

858,.858,.78,.78,.468,.546

res (.351 inch.-Transl

.585,.546,.429,.39,.39,.351,

metres (.312 inch.-Tran

.585,.546,.78,.39,.39,.39

those figures exceed the length of the insect; because sometimes a higher number follows suddenly upon a lower; because the same string contains a figure of one value and another figure of but half that value. They prove

al of 16 millimetres, while in the second series, reserved for the males, instead of the interval of 7 millimetres at the beginning and the end, we have an interval of 5 millimetres in the middle. It is the same with the other series, each of which shows a s

d, with no guiding mark for the capacity of the cell, she busies herself straightway with the provisioning. When the heap of Bee-bread is judged sufficient, that is, I imagine, when her tired body tells her that sh

of building, with the tip of her abdomen? I have no idea what she does or what she has in view. I leave the interpretation of this performance to o

to partition off any number of cells. A whole day is not too long for making this barricade, especially in view of the minute finishing-touches, when the Osmia fills up with putty every chink through which the least atom could slip. The mason completing a wall smooths his plaster and brings it to

s in front of the galleries. Does she penetrate to the cells and lay her eggs there in the mother's absence? I could never catch the sneak in the act. Does she, like that other Tachina who ravages cells stocked with game (The cells of the Hunting Wasps.-Translator's Note.), nimbly deposit her eggs on the Osmia's harvest at the moment when the Bee is going indoors? It is possible, though I cannot say for certain. The fact remains that we soon see the Midge's grub-worms swarming around the larva, the da

is laid, not flat, but upright, with the fore-end free and the hind-end lightly held and fixed in the plastic mass. When hatched, the young grub, kept in its place by its rear-end

grub to take its first mouthfuls at random. This has no drawback, as the food is of the same quality throughout. But, with the Osmia's provisions-dry powder on the edges, jam in the centre-the grub would be in danger if its first meal were not regulated in advance. To begin with pollen not seasoned with honey would be fatal to its stomach. Having no choice of its mouthfuls because of its immobility and being obliged to fee

ardly perceptible to the most penetrating lens, show themselves in transverse circles. These are the first signs of segmentation. A contraction appears in the front hyaline part, marking the head. An extremel

g and casting of a wrapper. The most minute attention is necessary to show that appearances are deceptive and t

ellow cord occupying the front two-thirds of the body proclaims that the digestive apparatus is swelling out with food. For a fortnight, consume you