Bramble-Bees and Others

secret with no great difficulty. Let us examine her work in a cylindrical habitation. I have described in full detail, in the foregoing pages, the structure of her n

n, after disgorging the honey in the centre of the heap of flour already collected. If the width of the tube does not admit of this operation, if the insect is obliged to go out and then come in again backwards in order to place itself in a favourable posture for the discharge of the pollen, then the reed is too narrow and the Osmia

when the portion is seen to be enough, she lays an egg in the centre of it. Then and then only she resumes her plasterer's work and marks out the length of the new cell with a mud partition. This partition in its turn serves as the rear-wall of another chamber, which is first victualled and then closed; and so on until the cylinder is sufficiently colon

on which have not yet been translated into English.-Translator's Note.) Here we have an excellent illustration of one of those latent powers held in reserve for exceptional occasions and suddenly brought into play, although often very far removed from the insect's regular methods. If the reed, without being of inordinate

and at another with her hind-legs, she is able to empty her crop and to brush her abdomen; by pressing against it, she obtains a foothold for her little efforts in these various operations. When the tube was narrow, the outer wall supplied this foothold and the earthen partition was postponed until the heap of provisions was completed and surmounted by the egg; but in the present case the passage is too wide and would leave the insect floundering helplessly in space, so the p

e roomy dwellings when the eggs have to be laid at once and there is no other shelter in the neighbourhood. While my cylinder-hives gave me plenty of well-filled reeds o

ndency to group themselves in storeys without succeeding in doing so, because any regular arrangement would mean that the ceilings possessed a span which it is not in the builder's power to achieve. The edifice is not a geometrical masterpiece and it is even less satisfactory from the point of view of economy. In the previous constructions, the sides of the reed supplied the greater part

style of architecture, with its row of parallel dividing-disks. Moreover, in this composite arrangement, the size of the recesses left available by the earlier work to some extent decides the assessment of the sexes, for, according to the dimensions of those recesses, the walls erected take in now a larger space, the home of a female, and now a smaller space, the home of a male. Roomy quarters therefore have a double drawback

se to the Osmia, but the middle ones have the right diameter for cocoons arranged in single file. Here things happen as in a first-class reed, for the helical curve in no way affects the method of structure employed for a rectilinear series of cells. Circular partitions are erected at the required distances, with or without a serving-hatch, acc

enthusiastically accept my reeds. Some, it is true, take up their quarters in the Snail-shell; but even among these a goodly number refuse my new shells and return to their birth-place, the old Snail-shell, in order to utilize the family property, without much labour, at the cost of a few repairs. Whence, I ask, comes

achine of the universe? Let us go deeper into the question and bring other workers into evidence, those especially who, better equipped perhaps and at any rate better fitted

o the domain, dispute fiercely for the ancestral abode. The first who, by sheer brute force, takes possession of the dome, perches upon it and, for long hours, watches events while polishing her w

cells, of which, by the way, the good-natured owner yields a portion to Latreille's Osmia and to the Three-horned Osmia alike, are first made clean and wholesome and cleared of broken plaster and then p

e. Sometimes, however, the nest is of exceptional size and harbours a crowd of occupants, who live in peace, each attending to her business, as in the colossal hives in the sheds. Should the colony be at all numerous and the estate descend to two or three generations in succession, with a fresh layer of masonry each year, the normal walnut-sized nest becomes a ball as large as a man's two fists. I have gathered on a pine-tree a nest of the Mason-bee of the Shrubs that weighed a kilogram (2.205 pounds avoirdupois.-Translator's Note.) and was the size of a

r, vine-poles, large logs of fire-wood seasoning out of doors, heaped up in front of the farmhouse porch, stumps of trees, vine-stocks and big branches of all kinds are her favourite building-yards. A solitary and industrious worker, she bores, bit by bit, circular passages the width of one's thumb, as clear-cut as though they were made with an auger. A heap of saw-dust accumulates on the ground and bears witne

omy can occasionally be exercised by a piece of luck. Well, is the powerful Carpenter, all unheeding of fatigue, able to take advantage of such fortunate occasions? Does she know how to make use of houses which she has not tunnelled herself? Why, yes: a free lodging suits her just as much as it does the various Mason-bees. She knows as well as they the economic advantages of an old nest that is still in good condition: she settles down, as far as possible, in her predecessors' galleries, after freshening up the sides with a superficial scraping. And she does better still. She readily accepts lodgings which have never known a drill, no matter whose. The stout reeds used in the trellis-work that

ladly welcomed my advances; each spring, I see it inspect my rows of cylinders, pick out the best ones and instal itself there. Its work, redu

is more widely distributed, settling in dead wood-mulberry, cherry, almond, poplar-that was still standing. Her work is exactly the same as the Xylocopa's, on a smaller scale. A single entrance-hole gives access to three or four parallel galleries, assembled in a serried group; and these galleries are subdivided into cells by means of saw-dust partitions. Following the example of the big Carpenter-bee, Lithurgus chrysurus knows how to avoid the

erved in the clayey mass baked by the sun; it increases their length if necessary, runs out a few more branches, but does not decide to start boring in new ground until the old city, which, with its many labyrinths, resembles some monstrous sponge, is too much undermined for safety. The oval niches, the cells that open on those corridors, are also profitably employed. The Anthophora restores their entrance, which has been destroyed by th

in the wall or the shelter of a tile are lacking. What reasons induced him to give up the spherical edifice? To all seeming, the same reasons that led the Osmia to abandon the Snail-shell's spiral, which requires a fatiguing expenditure of clay, in favour of the economical cylinder of the reed. By making his home in a hole in the wall,

themselves, in the potential state, the industrial aptitude of their ancestors. If aroused by the stimulus of necessity, this aptitude will pass suddenly from inaction to action. When, therefore, the Sparrow still from time to time indulges in spherical building, this is not progress on his part, as is sometimes contended; it is, on the contrary, a ret

stances and attain the object aimed at with the least possible expenditure of time, materials and work, the three elements of mechanical labour. The problem in higher geometry solved by the Hive-bee is only a particular case-true, a magnificent case,-of this general law of economy which seems to govern the whole animal world. The wax cells, with their maximum capacity as against a minimum wall-space, are the equivalent, with the superaddition of a marvellous scientific skill, of the O