



Produced by Sue Asscher





THE MASON-BEES

By J. Henri Fabre


Translated By Alexander Teixeira De Mattos




TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

This volume contains all the essays on the Chalicodomae, or Mason-bees
proper, which so greatly enhance the interest of the early volumes of
the "Souvenirs entomologiques." 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 Osmiae, 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, Experiments" and "Exchanging the
Nests" form the last three chapters of "Insect Life", translated by the
author of "Mademoiselle Mori" and published by Messrs. Macmillan, who,
with the greatest courtesy and kindness have given me their permission
to include a new translation 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 edition
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 Rodwell for the invaluable assistance
which she has given me in the work of translation and in the less
interesting and more tedious department of research.

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS.

Chelsea, 1914.




CONTENTS.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

CHAPTER 1. THE MASON-BEES.

CHAPTER 2. EXPERIMENTS.

CHAPTER 3. EXCHANGING THE NESTS.

CHAPTER 4. MORE ENQUIRIES INTO MASON-BEES.

CHAPTER 5. THE STORY OF MY CATS.

CHAPTER 6. THE RED ANTS.

CHAPTER 7. SOME REFLECTIONS UPON INSECT PSYCHOLOGY.

CHAPTER 8. PARASITES.

CHAPTER 9. THE THEORY OF PARASITISM.

CHAPTER 10. THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE MASON-BEE.

CHAPTER 11. THE LEUCOPSES.

INDEX.




CHAPTER 1. THE MASON-BEES.

Reaumur (Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), inventor of the
Reaumur thermometer and author of "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire
naturelle des insectes."--Translator's Note.) devoted one of his
papers to the story of the Chalicodoma 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 Carpentras,
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 engendered
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 together, 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 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 dullness from
the gloomy room, whose walls dripped melancholy even more than dampness,
my one resource was my tongue, my one weapon my stick of chalk.

For that matter, there was the same contempt 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 principal of the college was a
first-rate man, the worthy Abbe X., who, not caring to dispense beans
and bacon himself, had left the commissariat-department to a relative
and had undertaken to teach the boys physics.

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

'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, Bastien?'

'Yes, I see,' says Bastien, the most mischievous 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,
Bastien, 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.'

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

And Bastien, to confirm his mendacious statement, keeps wriggling
his forefinger at the top of the tube, while his fellow-conspirators
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 improved, 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 particular appealed to both masters
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 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 carried that most delicate
and precious apparatus, the historic five-franc graphometer. The scene
of operations was an untilled, flinty plain, a harmas, as we call it in
the district. (Cf. "The Life of the Fly", by J. Henri Fabre, translated
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 1.--Translator's Note.) Here,
no curtain of green hedges or shrubs prevented me from keeping an
eye upon my staff; here--an indispensable condition--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 perpendicular to the
graphometer's performances.

Well, from the very first day, my attention 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?

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 off the polygon till later. It
was thus that I first saw Reaumur's Mason-bee, knowing nothing of her
history and 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 diversion 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 learnt 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 naturelle des animaux articules", by de Castelnau (Francis
Comte de Castelnau de la Porte (1812-1880), the naturalist
and traveller. Castelnau was born in London and died at
Melbourne.--Translator's Note.), E. Blanchard (Emile Blanchard (born
1820), author of various works on insects, Spiders, etc.--Translator's
Note.) and Lucas (Pierre Hippolyte Lucas (born 1815), author of works
on Moths and Butterflies, Crustaceans, etc.--Translator's Note.), and
boasted a multitude of most attractive 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 effected. That day my professional
emoluments 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 learnt
the name of my black Bee; I read for the first time various details of
the habits of insects; I found, surrounded in my eyes with a sort of
halo, the revered names of Reaumur, Huber (Francois Huber (1750-1831),
the 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.) and Leon Dufour (Jean Marie Leon Dufour (1780-1865), an
army surgeon who served with distinction in several campaigns, and
subsequently practised as a doctor in the Landes, 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: chapter 1; and "The Life of
the Fly": chapter 1.--Translator's Note.); 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? (The present essay is one of
the earliest in the "Souvenirs Entomologiques."--Translator's Note.)

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 unfamiliar with Greek. The name is given
to Bees who build their cells with materials similar to those which we
employ for our own dwellings. The work of these 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 understand--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 muraria), whose history Reaumur gives us in a masterly
fashion; and the Sicilian Chalicodoma (C. sicula) (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 4 footnote.--Translator's Note.), 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 department of Vaucluse, where she is one of the commonest Bees to
be seen in the month of May. In the first species the two sexes are so
unlike in colouring that a novice, surprised at observing them come out
of the same nest, would at first take them for strangers to each other.
The female is of a splendid velvety 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, recall, but only faintly, the rich purple of
the first 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 covered
with plaster, which might come off and imperil the future of the cells.
She confides her buildings only to solid foundations, such as bare
stones. 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 support.
The extreme abundance of these sites 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
valleys, 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 wanting, 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
cherished site is the lower surface of the projecting 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 masonry, 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 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 passage. But these are popular resorts, where hundreds and
thousands of workers labour, each for herself. If she be alone, which
happens pretty often, the Sicilian Mason-bee instals herself in the
first little nook handy, provided that it supplies a solid foundation
and warmth. As for the nature of this foundation, 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--hawthorn, pomegranate, Christ's
thorn--provides 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: calcareous 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 plaster and
lime that have long lost their setting-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,
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 fixing her abode under the
eaves of some rural dwelling, she always goes for her building-materials
to the nearest path or road, without allowing herself to be distracted
from her business by the constant traffic 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 adjoining 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 worker'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
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 fore-legs and above all the mandibles, which are the mason's chief
tools, work the material, which 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. (Three-quarters of an inch to one
inch.--Translator's Note.)

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 economise labour and mortar, the Bee employs coarse materials,
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
contribute to the solidity of the whole. Layers of mortar, sparingly
applied, hold them together. The outside of the cell thus assumes
the appearance of a piece of rustic architecture, in which the stones
project with their natural irregularities; but the inside, which
requires a more even surface in order not to 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 itself a cocoon and hang the rude
walls of its abode with silk. On the other hand, the Anthophorae 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
upright or slanting surface, it resembles the half of a thimble divided
from top to bottom. In this case, the support itself, the pebble,
completes 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 pebbly borders of the mountain streams
with gold, supply her with sugary liquid and pollen. 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 disgorging 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 abdomen with her two hind-legs and rids herself 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 circumference 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 supplied with honey and an egg and closed before 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 construction 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 between six and ten.
Do some eight grubs represent the Bee's whole family? Or does she
afterwards go and establish a more numerous progeny on other boulders?
The surface of the same stone is spacious enough to provide a support
for further cells if the number of eggs called for them; the Bee could
build there very comfortably, without hunting for another site,
without leaving the pebble 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 stone, 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 rustic gravel covering; but the thickness of their
walls and lids, two millimetres (.078 inch--Translator's Note.) at most,
seems hardly sufficient to protect the grubs against the inclemencies
of the weather. Set on its pebble 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 stonework, and by the winter frosts,
which will crumble what the rains have respected. However hard the
cement may be, can it possibly resist all these agents of destruction?
And, even if it does resist, will not the grubs, sheltered by too thin
a wall, have to suffer from excess of heat in summer and of cold in
winter?

Without arguing all this out, the Bee nevertheless 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 pellet, trowelful by trowelful, to the depth of a centimetre (.39
inch--Translator's Note.) 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.

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 start, those
elegant turrets covered with stucco-work, 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, 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 existence, know nothing of work and
do not return to the clay houses except for a brief moment 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
revert? 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 vacant nest that suits her and settles there; and woe to any
sister or neighbour who shall 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 examines the old cell to see what
parts require repairing. She tears off the strips of cocoon hanging from
the walls, removes the fragments 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 furnished,
the outer cover, the mortar dome, receives 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 hundreds, very often in many thousands, under
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 eagerness. 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 surface 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; otherwise she can look out for rough handling from the
parties interested. The cells, therefore, accumulate at random in
this workyard where there is no organization. Their shape is that of a
thimble divided down the middle; 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 corresponding with
the different courses of mortar. Inside, 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,
without 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 mortar, 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 establishment, thinner at the edges,
where as yet there are only newly built cells, and varying greatly in
dimensions according to the number 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 Chalicodoma
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
upright 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.



CHAPTER 2. EXPERIMENTS.

As the nests of the Mason-bee of the Walls are erected on small-sized
pebbles, which can be easily carried wherever you like and moved about
from one place to another, without disturbing either the work of
the builder or the repose of the occupants of the cells, they lend
themselves readily to practical 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 produce other combinations, vary them as much as possible and
test them by substitution and interchange. Lastly, to provide science
with a solid basis of facts, he must experiment. In this way, the
evidence of formal records will one day dispel the fantastic legends
with which our books are crowded: the Sacred Beetle (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": chapters 1 and 2; and "The Life and Love of the
Insect", by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos:
chapters 1 to 4.--Translator's Note.) calling on his comrades to lend a
helping hand in dragging his pellet out of a rut; the Sphex (A species
of Hunting Wasp. Cf. "Insect Life": chapters 6 to 12.--Translator's
Note.) 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 harvest was so great that
the illustrious harvester went straight to what was most urgent, the
gathering of the crop, and left his successors to examine the grain and
the ear in detail. Nevertheless, in connection with the Chalicodoma of
the Walls, he mentions an experiment made by his friend, Duhamel. (Henri
Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700-1781), a distinguished writer on botany
and agriculture.--Translator's Note.) He tells us how a Mason-bee's nest
was enclosed in a glass funnel, the mouth of which was covered merely
with a bit of gauze. From it there issued three males, who, after
vanquishing 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 pick-axe to do the same work as a dressmaker's
scissors. Secondly, the transparent glass prison seems to me ill-chosen.
As soon as the insect has made a passage through the thickness of its
earthen dome, it finds itself 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 perishes, at last, of exhaustion, without, in its
obstinacy, giving a glance at the gauze closing the conical chimney. The
experiment must be renewed under better conditions.

The obstacle which I select is ordinary brown paper, stout enough
to keep the insect in the dark and thin enough not to offer serious
resistance to the prisoner's efforts. As there is a great difference, in
so far as the actual nature of the barrier is concerned, between 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 capable of cutting a thin
membrane? This is the 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 towards 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 (.39 inch--Translator's Note.) 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 making 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 interference,
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
vegetable 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 henceforth the argument of
incapacity cannot be raised when a mere paper barrier is in question.

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
resting 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 without any intervening space. Over the other, I have placed a
little brown paper cone, gummed to the pebble. There is here, therefore,
as in the first case, a double wall--a clay partition and a paper
partition--with this difference, that the two walls do not come
immediately 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 already seen in
the reed cells closed with a lid of the same material. We thus become
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 making their way through the earthen dome, finding 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 vigorous
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-endowed with tools and instinctive faculties for
accomplishing the final act of its metamorphosis, namely, the act of
emerging from the cocoon and from the cell. Its mandibles provide it
with scissors, file, pick-axe 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, except for which the outfit
would be useless--it has, I will not say the will to use those tools,
but a secret stimulus inviting 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 between them, form
but one to the Bee, who passes through them because the act of getting
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 thickness
of wall is really the same. Once outside 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 intelligence. 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 foremost, to fill
it with pollen-paste, carried her to a closet at some distance from the
spot 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 is a vast expanse of pebbles for three-fourths of the year
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, carried to the nearest room,
releases herself and forthwith returns to her nest in that familiar
neighbourhood, but long journeys through unknown 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 yourself, as I did, what
incomprehensible knowledge of the local map guides that mother seeking
her nest.

To come to facts: it is a matter of repeating with the Mason-bee of the
Walls my former experiments with the Cerceris-wasps (Cf. "Insect Life":
chapter 19.--Translator's Note.), 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
himself, I make him a present of my manner of operation, which may save
him time at the outset. The insect intended for a long journey must
obviously be handled with certain precautions. There must be no forceps
employed, 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 marking each captive before
setting her free, is left to be done on the spot selected for the
starting-point. I use finely-powdered chalk, steeped in a strong
solution of gum arabic. The mixture, applied to some part of the insect
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 detach the pollen and is sure to rub it off sooner
or later. I therefore make another one, dropping 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 overpower
her without rough pressure. It is easily seen that, though the job may
yield no other profit, you are at least sure of being 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.
According 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 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 original occupant are inscribed for me in undeniable
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 intruder, who possibly was
meaning no harm. A hot chase in mid-air now takes place between the two
Masons. From time to time, they hover almost without movement, face to
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 expect to see them come to blows, to make them draw their
stings. But my hopes are disappointed: 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
demonstrations 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
discouraged, retires from the field. Forthwith the Mason resumes her
work, as actively as though she had not just undergone the hardships 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, some homeless
vagabond, to call at the nest, take a fancy to it and set to work on it,
sometimes 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 inferior to that of the real owner. If she is less bold, this
is because she has not the tremendous 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 reappear, either on the day when
the first arrived or on the following days. I decide upon another
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.

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 dropping 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 difficult 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 required by the
journey.

The experiment must be tried again, taking 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.
Fortunately, I have at my own place, under the eaves of a shed, a
magnificent nest of Chalicodoma 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 daughter 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 compare the
instant of departure and of arrival. Things being thus arranged, I carry
off my forty captives and go to the identical spot where C. muraria
works, in the pebbly 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, therefore, 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 handling 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 corner of the veil of truth is a fine and noble thing, a mighty
stimulant in the face of danger; but still one may be excused for
displaying 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 fingers 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 <DW36>s, these incapables injured by my fingers
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 the
Cerceris-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 direction. Nevertheless, as far
as their impetuous 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 home; 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 insects 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 complicated. 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 continue their foraging; but soaring to lofty
regions, whence they can obtain a clear view of the country, is, so
it seems to me, prohibited. 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 excitement:

'Two!' she cries. 'Two came back 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 watching the Bees' return.

I had released my insects at about two o'clock; and the first arrivals
returned to the 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 remember that the Bees
did some foraging on the road, as was proved by the yellow pollen on
their bellies, 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 scattered workers to the nest, I
took a fresh census 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 happened. The weather had become more
and 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
unacquainted 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
furnish 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 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 explain it,
so greatly does it transcend our own psychology.



CHAPTER 3. 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 performed 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, examines 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 Bee takes wing and
flies away to some distance. Her absence is of short duration. 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 inspections of the deserted spot continue for a long
time, a very long time, before the Mason is convinced that her nest is
gone. She has certainly 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 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 transplanted dwelling 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 incapable 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 impression of the site occupied by the
nest and 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 herself 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, refusing 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 general acquaintance with locality and such limitations
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 (Cf. "Insect Life":
chapters 16 to 19.--Translator's Note.) have already led us to a like
conclusion. When the nest is laid open, these Wasps become 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 precision, is the site of the entrance-door of
which nothing at all is left, not even the threshold.

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 settles without hesitation in this nest which is not
hers, but which stands where the other did. If she was building, I offer
her a cell in process of building. She continues the masonry 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 another'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 working at the cell which is really hers.

After leaving her for a time in possession of the strange nest, I give
her back her own. This fresh change passes unperceived 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 experiment 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 a part. 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 choose between them, each Bee,
on arriving, settles immediately on the substituted nest and continues
her work there. Change the two nests as often as you please and you
shall see the two Mason-bees keep 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 confusion 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 generation. One of these cells has been repaired;
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 differences:
one with its eight empty chambers and 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 consisting 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 therefore 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 her nest when she started on her last journey, the nucleus
of a store of food. Thenceforward she behaves like her neighbour and
goes on carrying honey and pollen to the warehouse which is not of her
constructing.

Restore the nests to their original places, exchange them yet once
again and both Bees, after a short hesitation which the great difference
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 provisioning 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 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 mistake:
our logic is not the logic of the insect, 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 <DW72> prepared beforehand 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 interests. The cell which I give her is certainly
perfect, looked upon as a building, in the opinion of the master-builder
herself, since the Bee from whom I took it was completing the provision
of honey. To touch it up, especially 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
then 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 overpowering
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 warning 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 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 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 desperate 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 warehouse, 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 realises 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 enough to admit a pin's head. I wait longer still. Then
I lose patience; and, fully convinced that the Bee is trying to open the
store-room, I decide to help her to shorten the work. 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 intention 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 unfinished
cell substituted for her own. But she did not retreat before that
impossible task. She accomplished her work, but in the absurdest way: by
injuriously trespassing upon another's property, by continuing to store
provisions in a cupboard already full to overflowing, 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 serious repairs. What
better proof could be wished of the irresistible propensity which the
insect obeys?

Lastly, there are certain swift and consecutive actions so closely
interlinked that the performance of the second demands a previous
repetition of the first, even when this action has become useless. I
have already described how the Yellow-winged Sphex (Cf. "Insect Life":
chapters 6 to 9.--Translator's Note.) persists in descending into
her burrow alone, after depositing at its edge the Cricket whom I
maliciously at once remove. Her repeated 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 another form, a similar
repetition of an act which is useless in itself, but which is the
compulsory preface to the act that follows. When 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 prevented. The Bee now begins the whole
performance 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
proceedings, 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, sometimes again she only pretends to descend, just bending her
head into the aperture; but, whether completed or not, this action, for
which there is no longer any motive, since the honey has already been
disgorged, invariably 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.



CHAPTER 4. MORE ENQUIRIES INTO MASON-BEES.

This chapter was to have taken the form of a letter addressed to Charles
Darwin, the illustrious naturalist who now lies buried beside Newton in
Westminster 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
correspondence: 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 scientific 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 darkest problem of the hereafter. (Darwin died at Down,
in Kent, on the 19th of April 1882.--Translator's Note.) I therefore
abandon the epistolary form, which would be unwarranted in view of that
grave at Westminster. A free and impersonal statement shall set forth
what I intended to relate in a more academic manner.

One thing, above all, had struck the English scientist on reading the
first volume of my "Souvenirs entomologiques", namely, the Mason-bees'
faculty of knowing the way back to their nests after being carried to
great distances 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, absorbed as he was by other
interests. This experiment, 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 relation to your wonderful account
of insects finding their way home. I formerly wished to try it with
pigeons; namely, to carry the insects in their paper cornets about
a hundred paces in the opposite direction to that which you intended
ultimately to carry them, but before turning round to return, to put the
insects 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 animals may feel in which direction they were at
the first start carried.'

This method of experimenting seemed to me very ingeniously conceived.
Before going west, I walk eastwards. In the darkness of their paper
bags, the mere fact that I am moving them gives my prisoners a sense of
the direction 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 remains under its original
impression. I am now taking it to the west, when it believes itself
to be still travelling towards the east. Under the influence of this
impression; the insect 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 confirm my hopes.
Favier (The author's gardener and factotum. Cf. "The Life of the
Fly": chapter 4.--Translator's Note.), the very man for this sort of
information, was the first to put me on the track. He told me that, when
people want to move a Cat from one farm to another at some distance,
they place the animal in a bag which they twirl rapidly at the moment of
starting, thus preventing the animal from returning to the house which
it has quitted. Many others, besides Favier, described 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
amazed; so was I; and we both of us almost reckoned on a success.

These preliminaries took place in the winter; I had plenty of time to
prepare for the experiment which was to be made in the following 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 neighbour assented with a good grace to
the exchange 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 rectangular 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 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 accumulate; 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 "Souvenirs." Under my erroneous denomination of Chalicodoma
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 various names, which are, in order of priority: Chalicodoma
pyrenaica, LEP. (Megachile); Chalicodoma pyrrhopeza, GERSTACKER;
Chalicodoma rufitarsis, GIRAUD. It is a pity 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
entomology. 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 Professor Jean Perez, of Bordeaux, who is so well-versed in
the lore of Wasps and Bees.--Author's Note.)

These treasures were insufficient, not in regard 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 insects issuing
from those nests might be hereditarily influenced by their ancestors,
who had lived in the shed for many a long year. The Bee, when carried
to a distance, would perhaps come back, guided by the inveterate family
habit; she would find the shed of her lineal predecessors and thence,
without difficulty, 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 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 themselves in a numerous colony. He proposed
to take the wheelbarrow, in which to move the blocks of cells; but
I objected: the jolting of the vehicle over the rough paths might
jeopardise 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 (Social Weaver-birds.--Translator's Note.)
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 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 myself 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 scorching 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 should have them grow
attached to the new dwelling. And I happen to have the very thing for
them.

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 something 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 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, incapable 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, I stand
in the thick of the whirling crowd and never a prick do I receive. I
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
curiosity 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 nothing unusual
about it. My Bees, far from remaining an object of dread, became an
object of diversion; every one took pleasure in watching 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 standing 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?'

'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 experimenting. The Mason-bees intended
for the journey 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 insects had to
be held in the fingers one after the other; and I was thus exposed
to frequent stings, which 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 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  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. Nothing 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 forthwith 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 open the bags. The
whole performance is thus effected without once giving that distressing
squeeze of the fingers.

Another question remains to be solved before 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 that 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 in the galleries, but with her
head at the entrance. Once those old habitations are in use, however,
and the building of new cells begun, she selects another retreat. In the
harmas (The piece of enclosed waste ground on which the author studies
his insects in their natural state. Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapter
1.--Translator's Note.), as I have said elsewhere, are stone
heaps, intended for building the surrounding wall. This is where
my Chalicodomae 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 consideration, 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; 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 advisable 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; tomorrow
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 the Bees that return on the same day.

The question of the rotary machine remains. Darwin advised me to use a
circular box with an axle and a handle. I have nothing 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 insects, each one placed by itself in a paper cornet (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.) or screw, shall be placed
in a tin box; the screws of paper shall be wedged in so as 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 circles; if I spin on my heels at the same time, I am able
to make the process still more complicated by compelling my sling to
trace every known curve. That is what I shall do.

On the 2nd 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 brick-laying; others are
garnering 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 sling. There is a way-side
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 accomplished in the presence of this unexpected witness. Then
I retrace my steps and walk westward 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 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 insects 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 going two or three
times round my body, a suspicious-looking object which they wish,
apparently, to reconnoitre before starting. A quarter of an hour later,
my eldest daughter, 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 home on the same day, out of
ten scattered abroad.

I resume the experiment next morning. I mark ten Mason-bees with red,
which will enable me to distinguish them from those who returned 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
myself to swinging my box round on leaving and on arriving. The insects
are released at a quarter past eleven. I preferred the forenoon, 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 myself am back at twelve and, within a short time, catch three
others. I see no more 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 Chalicodomae marked with
blue. The distance to be travelled remains the same. I make the first
rotation after carrying my insects a few hundred steps in the direction
opposite to that which I finally take; in addition, three rotations 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 moment undecided and lazy; but,
after a short sunbath on a stone where I place them, they take wing. I
am sitting on the ground, facing the south, with Serignan on my left
and Piolenc 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 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 minutes 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 Serignan. Yet I had taken care to leave the
choice free between the two opposite directions: in particular, I had
sent away my Dog, 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 experiment has been repeated often
enough, but it does not conclude as Darwin hoped, as I myself hoped,
especially after what I had 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 twirl my sling with every complication in the
way of whirls and twists that I am able to imagine; in vain, thinking
to increase the difficulties, do I repeat the rotation as often as
five times over: at the start, on the road, on arriving; it makes no
difference: the Mason-bees return; and the proportion 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 experimenting again, but in a
different way. Hitherto, I had worked on the level. To return to the
nest, my lost Bees had only to cross slight obstacles, the hedges
and spinneys of the tilled fields. To-day, I propose to add to
the difficulties 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 releasing my Chalicodomae in the thick
of the Serignan Woods. How will they escape from that labyrinth, where,
in the early days, I needed a compass to find my way? Moreover, I
shall have an assistant with me, a pair of eyes younger than mine and
better-fitted to follow my insects' first flight. That immediate start
in the direction of the nest has already been repeated very often and is
beginning to interest me more than the return itself. A pharmaceutical
student, spending a few days with my parents, shall be my eyewitness.
With him, I shall feel at ease; science and he are no strangers.

The trip to the woods takes place on the 16th of May. The weather is
hot and hints at a coming storm. There is a perceptible breeze from
the south, but not enough to upset 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 recognize the direction of the
insects' first flight. 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 curtain
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 insects 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 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 the 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
approaching. 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 returned. 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 condition on leaving
my stung and smarting fingers. Besides, the sky has become overcast, 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 day of fine
weather. A splendid morning is swiftly followed by a fitful afternoon;
and my experiments with Mason-bees have often suffered by these
variations. All things considered, I am inclined to think that the
homeward journey across the forest and the mountain 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 another 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 offers 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 Turonian fossils. We next turn back towards
Serignan, by the Piolenc Road. A halt is made by the stretch of country
known as Font-Claire, the distance from which to the village 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 favour of the insects that went the roundabout
way is evidently an accidental result which we 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 intricate 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 Chalicodomae or prevent
them from going back to the nest.

I had written to Charles Darwin telling him of my first, negative
results, those obtained by swinging the Bees in a box. He expected
a success and was much surprised at the failure. Had he had time to
experiment with his Pigeons, they would have behaved 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 diamagnetic sensibility which it seems just possible that
they may possess.'

To treat an insect as you would a magnetic 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 pretend to explain life; nevertheless, my respect for
the great man would have made me resort to the induction-coils, if I had
possessed the necessary 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 realised, another method was suggested,
simpler than the first and more certain in its results, as Darwin
himself considered:

'To make a very thin needle into a magnet; 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 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 terrestrial 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 magnetism by reason of its
comparative nearness, the insect will lose its bearings. Naturally, in
setting down these lines, I take shelter behind the mighty reputation
of the learned begetter of the idea. It would not be accepted as serious
coming from a humble person like myself. Obscurity cannot afford these
audacious theories.

The experiment seems easy; it is not beyond the means at my disposal.
Let us attempt it. I magnetise 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. (.2 to.23 inch.--Translator's Note.) This broken
piece is a perfect magnet: it attracts and repels another magnetised
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
laboratory. The best is a sort of cerecloth which he prepares specially
with a very fine material. 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 magnetised 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 opposite
end in others.

My assistant and I begin 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 will behave in its magnetic 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 magnetised 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 desperately and ends by darting through the open
window in headlong flight.

What does it all mean? The magnet appears to have a curious effect on my
patient's system! What a fuss she makes! How terrified she is! The Bee
seemed utterly distraught at losing her bearings under the influence 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 before weighing the arguments for and against, I feel doubt
creeping in upon me with regard to what I have seen. Was it really
the magnetic 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 without 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 nothing to do with what happened. My invention, 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 apparatus, 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 impracticable. What would it tell us
if the insect consented to it? In my opinion, it would tell us nothing.
In the matter of the homing instinct, a magnet would have no more
influence than a bit of straw.



CHAPTER 5. 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 animal 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 history abound with
feats that do the greatest credit to his prowess as a pilgrim. I do
not attach much importance to these stories: 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 traveller. 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 deserves his reputation as a discerning
pilgrim. Let us relate these incidents.

One day--it was at Avignon--there appeared upon the garden-wall a
wretched-looking Cat, with matted coat and protruding ribs, so thin
that his back was a mere jagged ridge. He was mewing with hunger. My
children, at that time very young, took pity on his misery. Bread
soaked in milk was offered 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 compassionate
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 important matter: I can see to this day, I shall
always see the council of rattleheads deliberating on the Cat's 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
reddish fur, flecked with darker patches, reminded 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 of my series of Gingers, which I have retained 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 (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 Napoleon III. from 1863 to 1869.
Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapter 20.--Translator's Note.), had
instituted classes for the secondary education of girls. This was the
beginning, as far as was then possible, of the burning question of
to-day. I 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 conservatories.

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; 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
feeble 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 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 moving of the Cats. We were all of us
attached to them and should have thought it nothing short of criminal to
abandon the poor creatures, whom we had so often petted, to distress
and probably to thoughtless persecution. The shes and the kittens would
travel without 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 serious problem. I had two: the head of the family, the patriarch; and
one of his descendants, quite as strong as himself. We decided to
take the grandsire, if he consented to come, and to leave the grandson
behind, after finding 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-panes, among the ornaments on the mantelpiece, threatening to
make short work of everything. Mme. Loriol was frightened by the little
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. And 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 labyrinth of crowded streets, amid a
thousand dangers, 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 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 alarming 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 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 distance, I admit. A fresh move is resolved upon, that
I may have, at 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 carriage, in company with my family. Nothing striking
happens before our arrival. Released from their hampers, the females
inspect the new home, explore the rooms one by one; with their pink
noses they recognize the furniture: they find their own seats, their own
tables, their own arm-chairs; but the surroundings are different. They
give little surprised 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 acclimatised.

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 company, 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
attentions, 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 treatment 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 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 believe in this venturesome pilgrimage. I declare
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 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. He crossed the torrent
in May, at a time when the rivers run high; he overcame his repugnance
to water in order to return to his beloved 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
unhappy 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 robber 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 of the swinging motion in the bag. Are they thrown out
of their latitude by this stratagem, are or they not? I was thinking
of making some experiments, when more precise information 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 himself. 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 blind-folded 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 that, in
successful cases, the Cats made to lose their bearings were young and
unemancipated 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 whirling operation by way of an additional precaution; 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 genuine Tom.

I did in the end get the evidence which I wanted on this point.
Intelligent and trustworthy people, not given to jumping to conclusions,
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 another
house, and subjected to a conscientious series of revolutions, the Cat
always came back. I have in mind more particularly a destroyer of the
Goldfish in a fountain, who, when transported from Serignan to Piolenc,
according to the time-honoured method, returned 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 number of similar instances,
all under most favourable conditions. The evidence is unanimous: the
revolving motion never keeps the adult Cat from returning home. The
popular 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 homing of the Cat as well as of
the Mason-bee.



CHAPTER 6. 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 intelligence, one who, though surpassed by others in the
knowledge of the stuffed animal under a glass case, is almost unrivalled
in his knowledge of the live animal in its wild state, Toussenel
(Alphonse Toussenel (1803-1885), the author of a number of interesting
and valuable works on ornithology.--Translator's Note.), the admirable
writer of "L'Esprit des betes", speaks of sight and meteorology as the
Carrier-pigeon's guides:

'The French bird,' he says, 'knows by experience that the cold weather
comes from the north, the hot from the south, the dry 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 pursuing the
road to the south. When restored to liberty 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 direction 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
generalization. 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 circles 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
<DW72> at no great height from the ground. Sight enables 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
experience 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 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 are to travel.

To explain these many mysteries, we 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 speaking, of
course, of the magnetism of the physicists and not of the magnetism of
the Mesmers and Cagliostros. Assuredly we possess nothing remotely like
it. What need would the mariner have of a compass, were he himself a
compass?

And this is what the great scientist acknowledges: a special sense, so
foreign to our organism that we are not able to form a conception of
it, guides the Pigeon, the Swallow, the Cat, the Mason-bee and a host of
others 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 acquisition, what a source of progress! Why are we deprived
of it? It would have been a fine weapon and of great service in the
struggle for life. If, as is contended, the whole of the animal kingdom,
including man, is derived 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 zoological progression?
Our precursors were very ill-advised to let so magnificent an
inheritance 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 know what their protoplasm and
their nucleus have to say to it.

Is this unknown sense localized in a particular part of the Wasp and the
Bee? Is it exercised by means of a special organ? We immediately 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 direction. When the Hairy Ammophila (A Sand-wasp who hunts the
Grey Worm, or Caterpillar of the Turnip-moth, to serve as food for her
grubs. For other varieties of the Ammophila, cf. "Insect Life": chapter
15.--Translator's Note.) is searching for the Grey Worm, it is with her
antennae, those tiny fingers continually fumbling at the soil, that she
seems to recognize 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 antennae with the scissors,
as closely as I could. These maimed ones were then carried 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 tuberculata) (Another Hunting Wasp, who feeds her
young on Weevils. Cf. "Insect Life": chapters 4 and 5.--Translator's
Note.); 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 drive 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 feeling, fumbling and
exploring, superintending, as it were, the finishing touches given to
the work. They are her instruments of precision; they represent the
builder's compasses, square, level and plumb-line.

Hitherto my experiments have been confined to the females, who are much
more faithful to the nest by virtue of their maternal responsibilities.
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
recipient 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 represented to them a distant expedition, an unknown
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 take refuge
in the old galleries or in the interstices 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 galleries 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 Osmiae (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
Great or Warted Cerceris (Cerceris tuberculata). ("Insect Life": chapter
19.--Translator's Note.) Shall I generalize without reserve and allow
all the Hymenoptera (The Hymenoptera are an order of insects having
four membranous wings and include the Bees, Wasps, Ants, Saw-flies and
Ichneumon-flies.--Translator's Note.) this faculty of finding their
way in unknown country? I shall do nothing of the kind; for here, to my
knowledge, is a contradictory 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 Amazon. Unable 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
ransack 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 expedition. The
column measures five or six yards in length. If nothing worthy of
attention be met upon the road, the ranks are fairly well maintained;
but, at the first suspicion of 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
underground city, a bewildering scrimmage between the defending
blacks and the attacking reds. The struggle is too unequal to remain
indecisive. Victory falls to the reds, who race back to their abode,
each with her prize, a swaddled nymph, dangling from her mandibles. The
reader who is not acquainted with these slave-raiding habits would be
greatly interested in the story of the Amazons. I relinquish 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-stealing column varies: it all depends
on whether Black Ants are plentiful in the neighbourhood. At times,
ten or twenty yards suffice; at others, it requires fifty, a hundred or
more. I once saw the expedition go beyond the garden. The Amazons
scaled the surrounding wall, which was thirteen feet high at that point,
climbed over it and went on a little farther, into a cornfield. 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,
brickwork, a clump of shrubs: all are crossed without 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 difficult. Laden with
their plunder, the Red Ants return to the nest by the same road, often
an exceedingly complicated one, which the exigencies 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.

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
hollows and reach the heights by means of swaying bridges, emerging at
last from the labyrinth 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 deviation 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 difficult bit; and the column was decimated before it
had passed. I expected to see the return journey made by another road,
which would wind round and avoid the fatal cliff. Not at all. The
nymph-laden band resumed the parlous path and the Goldfish 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 return 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 Caterpillars, when they leave their nest and go to another
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 excursions:
a silken path brings it home again. The Processionaries, with their
unsophisticated traffic-laws, are very different from the 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 compulsory return by her
former trail. Can she imitate, to a certain extent, the Processionaries'
method, that is to say, does she leave, along the road traversed, not a
series of conducting 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 generally 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 palpitation. 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 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 already 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 commissioned 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? How?'

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

I hurried out. Things had happened as my six-year-old colleague said.
Lucie had secured 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 previously 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 odorous effluvia, their absence will
throw the Ants off the track. I divide the road, in this way, at four
different points, a few feet a part.

The column 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
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 circuitous route. At
the other cuttings, there are the same halts, the same hesitations;
nevertheless, 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 wherever the
road is swept. Though 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 judgment for or
against the sense of smell, it were well to renew the experiment under
better conditions and to remove everything containing a vestige of
scent.

A few days later, when I have definitely decided 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 afternoons 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
plentifully 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 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 reckless 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 efforts, 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 beforehand but also
pours fresh water on it all the 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 traces 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 paper, newspapers, keeping them in position with a few small
stones. In front of this carpet, 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 compelled to make manifold attempts,
reconnaissances to right and left, forward movements and repeated
retreats, before venturing altogether into the unknown zone. The paper
straits are crossed at last and the march resumed 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 impregnated, it
is patent that, as the Ants hesitated and stopped in the same way as
before, they find their way not by sense of smell, but really and truly
by sense of sight; for, every time that I alter the appearance of the
track in any way whatever--whether by my destructive 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 uneasily on
beholding this unfamiliar scenery. If the doubtful zones are at length
passed, it is due to the fact that fresh attempts are constantly being
made to cross the doctored strips and that at last a few Ants
recognize well-known spots beyond them. The others, relying 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! What 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 recollection 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 sometimes 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 then there, skirting my line
of pebbles, without any noticeable deviation.

Can one believe that odoriferous emanations 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
a memory 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 irregularities of the ground.

How will the Amazon behave when the locality is unknown to her? Apart
from topographical 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 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 southerly 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 directions, without succeeding in finding her
whereabouts. 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 succeeded in recovering the route
and were going 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 succeeds in finding her column. She
knows the locality.

Here, of a surety, is a Hymenopteron deprived 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 surprise, just now, that man was deprived of
a wonderful sense wherewith certain animals are endowed. The enormous
distance between the two things compared might furnish matter for
discussion. In the present case, the distance no longer exists: we have
to do with two insects very near akin, two Hymenoptera. Why, if they
issue from the same mould, has one a sense which the other has not, an
additional sense, constituting a much more overpowering 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 impressions?
Does the Amazon require repeated journeys in order to learn her
geography, 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 experimenter 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 information.

I select the Pompili, whose habits we shall study in detail in a later
chapter. (For the Wasp known as the Pompilus, or Ringed Calicurgus,
cf. "The Life and Love of the Insect", by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter 12.--Translator's Note.) They are
hunters of Spiders and diggers of burrows. The game, the food of the
coming larva, is first caught and paralysed; the home is excavated
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 lawful 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, touches it here and there, as though taking stock of
its plumpness and congratulating herself on the plentiful provender;
then she returns to her burrow and goes on digging. Should anything
alarm or distress her, she does not merely inspect her Spider: she also
brings her a little closer to her work-yard, but never fails to lay her
on the top of a tuft of verdure. These are the manoeuvres of which I can
avail myself to gauge the elasticity of the Wasp's memory.

While the Pompilus is at work on the burrow, I seize the prey and place
it in an exposed 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 beforehand. Let us take no notice
of this first expedition; 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 explorations and frequent returns to the exact
spot where the Spider was deposited. At last, convinced that the
prize is no longer there, the Wasp makes a leisurely survey of the
neighbourhood, feeling the ground with her antennae as she goes. The
Spider is descried in the exposed spot where I had placed her. Surprise
on the part of the Pompilus, who goes forward and then suddenly steps
back with a start:

'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 huntress 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 distance, on the bare ground. This is the
moment 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 certainly 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 modelled
in the insect's memory: the first shelf may easily be confused with the
second. To which will the Pompilus go?

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 not 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 hurries 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
worrying about the others. I stand amazed at the memory of that pigmy.
She need but catch a single hurried glimpse of a 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 relentlessly 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 exposed 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 continues her vain search farther off.
Her guide, therefore is not scent, but sight. Nevertheless, she is
constantly feeling the ground with her antennae. What can be the
function of those organs? I do not know, although I assert 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.



CHAPTER 7. SOME REFLECTIONS UPON INSECT PSYCHOLOGY.

The laudator temperis acti is out of favour just now: the world is on
the move. Yes, but sometimes it moves backwards. 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 nowhere 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 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
doubtful and highly debatable ones, I did my own observing, in order to
arrive at a definite conviction; 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 greatest amount of industry upon the smallest body of matter. Can
the bird, wonderful architect that it is, compare its work with that
masterpiece of higher geometry, the edifice of the Bee? The Hymenopteron
rivals man himself. We build towns, the Bee erects cities; 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; we have abolished slavery, whereas she continues her
<DW65>-traffic.

Well, does this superior, this privileged being reason? Reader, do not
smile: this is a most serious matter, well worthy of our consideration.
To devote our attention to animals is to plunge at once into the vexed
question of who we are and whence we come. What, then, passes in that
little Hymenopteron brain? Has it faculties akin to ours, has it the
power of thought? What a problem, 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
convinced 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 conforming it to the needs of the accidental. Within these
limits, are animals capable of reasoning? Are they able to connect
a 'because' with a 'why' and afterwards to regulate 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 withstand
a severe examination. One of the most remarkable of which I know is
supplied by Erasmus Darwin, in his book entitled "Zoonomia." 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 between cause and effect. The effect is the resistance
experienced in the flight; the cause is the dimensions of the prey
contending with the air. Hence the logical conclusion: those dimensions
must be lessened; the abdomen, the head and, above all, the wings must
be chopped off; and the resistance will be decreased. (I would gladly,
if I were able, cancel some rather hasty lines which I allowed myself
to pen in the first volume of these "Souvenirs" but scripta manent. 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 l'entomologie", I believed
that a Sphex was given as the heroine of the story. How could I do
otherwise, 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 substitute a Sphex for a Common Wasp? Great was
my perplexity, 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 Erasmus 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 afterwards that his
grandfather wrote 'a Wasp' in his "Zoonomia." Though the correction did
credit to my intelligence, 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 inaccuracy 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.)

But does this concatenation of ideas, rudimentary though it be, really
take place within the insect's brain? I am convinced of the contrary;
and my proofs are unanswerable. In the first volume of these "Souvenirs"
(Cf. "Insect Life": chapter 9.--Translator's Note.), I demonstrated
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. Whether 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 larvae. 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 outcome 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 forward as a serious
argument an incident which had no connection with the important question
of animal reason.

I have reverted to this case to show the difficulties that beset the man
who confines himself to casual observations, however carefully 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 incidents, 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 mentioned, lent themselves to continuous experiment 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 allowed me to repeat my attempts
until I was perfectly convinced. The Mason-bees, therefore, 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 circumference 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 advanced to take a first instalment of honey.

The Bee thereupon leaves the mortar and busies herself with harvesting.
After a few foraging-trips, the work of building is resumed; 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 alternations continue until the
cell is of the regulation height and holds the amount of honey required
for the larva's food. 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 everything 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
permanent 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 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 substitute 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 immediate construction of the lid of the nest. The precious
egg must not for a single instant remain exposed to the cupidity of
marauders.

To these particulars I will add a few general observations which will
make what follows easier to understand. So long as its circumstances are
normal, the insect's actions are calculated most rationally in view of
the object to be attained. What could be more logical, for instance,
than the devices employed by the Hunting Wasp when paralysing her prey
(Cf. "Insect Life": chapters 3 to 12 and 15 to 17.--Translator's Note.)
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 Wasp's action is not prompted by
reason. If she thought out her surgery, she would be our superior. It
will never occur to anybody that the creature is able, in the smallest
degree, to account for its skilful vivisections. Therefore, 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 continues, under a similar form,
its actual task; it remains, in short; in the same psychic condition.
In the second case, the accident is connected with a more remote
occupation; it relates to a completed task with which, under normal
conditions, the insect is no longer concerned. 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 was
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 initial layer of the covering of
the cell. She has gone in search of a second 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 originally engaged on
the lid and is merely continuing its work in mending that lid.

A second is still at her first row of bricks. 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 building. 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 insect, on arriving with its mortar intended for
a different task, sees its broken jar and soon puts the damage right.
I have rarely witnessed such a sensible performance. Nevertheless, 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 join which it had overlooked; it completes its actual task by
improving the join.

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 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 occurred to us to look upon these repaired breaches as a
work dictated by reason. Let us turn to the second class of emergency
referred to above: let us imagine, first, cells similar 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 future larva is
at stake. Let him dismiss any such illusion: more and more journeys are
undertaken, 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 harvesting; the busy bricklayer 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 adjusting 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 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 dexterity. For a piece of work done by a man's hand it is quite
creditable. My dab of mortar fits nicely into the mutilated wall;
it hardens 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 concatenation of ideas in the insect's mind, in expecting
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 the hole in the
receptacle, is too lofty a piece of reasoning for the insect.

A cell in the rudimentary cup-stage and containing no provisions has a
hole, three or four millimetres (.11 to.15 inch.--Translator's Note.)
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 as it did just
now?

Not at all. It returns with provisions, it disgorges its honey, it rubs
off its pollen, it 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
distinctly in both directions. I sweep the place clear over and over
again, whenever this 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 warehouse 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
Danaides. She persists in trying to fill her cracked receptacle,
whence the provisions disappear as soon as stored away. She constantly
alternates between builder's and harvester's work; she raises the edges
of the cell with fresh rows of bricks; she brings provisions 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 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 being done by the
Bee in the matter of the disastrous 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 the part of the work which occupied
the Bee at the actual moment; it was a flaw in the building, such as can
occur naturally 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.

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 invariable. A moment comes,
presently, when the harvesting is interrupted and the masoning resumed.
The edifice must be raised a storey higher. Will the Bee, once more a
builder, mixing fresh cement, now attend to the leakage 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 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 opening, 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 mortar. 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 insect'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 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 bodies into the cell. The Mason-bee
is a housekeeper of scrupulous cleanliness, as indeed are all the
Hymenoptera. Not a spot of dirt is suffered in her honey-pot; not a
grain of dust is permitted on the surface of her mixture. And yet, while
the jar is open, the precious Bee-bread is exposed to accidents. The
workers 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 flying thither. All this refuse has to disappear and that
quickly, lest afterwards the larva should find coarse fare under its
delicate mandibles. Therefore the Mason-bees must be able to cleanse the
cell of any foreign body. 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. (.039 inch.--Translator's Note.) Great
astonishment on the part of the returning insect. 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 proportion 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 an adjacent cell. The Bee picks it out and throws it away at a
distance, as she did with 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,
becomes a valueless, cumbersome, hateful thing when it belongs to
another. Her own egg is everything; the egg of her next door neighbour
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 in 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. (Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 to 4; also later
chapters in the present volume.--Translator's Note.)

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 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 complicated. I have said that, when
the time comes for laying, the Mason-bee arrives with a pellet 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 nearly a
centimetre. (.39 inch.--Translator's Note.) 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 undoing 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 required 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 surmounted by my mast, a
bit of protruding straw. What evidence of obtuse intelligence!

This result is deserving of attentive consideration. At the moment when
I am inserting my beam, the insect has its mandibles engaged: they are
holding the pellet of mortar intended for the blocking-operation. As
the extracting-tool is not free, the extraction does not take place. I
expected to see the Bee relinquish her mortar and then proceed to remove
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 disengaged, 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 by this untimely
trowelling: the moment has come to wall up the door; the door is walled
up. Once the mandibles are free, the extraction could be attempted, at
the risk of wrecking 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 it
all but an invincible persistence in the act once begun. The cogs have
gripped; and the rest of the wheels must follow. The mandibles are
fastened on the pellet of mortar; and the idea, the wish to unfasten
them will never occur to the insect until 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 little 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 evidently
measured by the needs of the coming larva. There is neither too much nor
too little. 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 attained the right level. The
honey being perfectly 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 the average, that the honey reaches a depth of ten millimetres. (.39
inch.--Translator's Note.) The Bee has not this resource; she has
sight, which may enable her to estimate the full section from the empty
section. This presupposes the possession of a somewhat geometric eye,
capable of measuring 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 little intellect: a Chalicodoma with a geometrician's eye,
able to divide a straight line into three equal parts! This is worth
looking into seriously.

I take five cells, which are only partly provisioned, 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 leaving a thin layer
at the bottom. I do not observe any pronounced hesitation on the part of
my plundered victims, even though they surprise me at the moment when
I am draining the jar; they continue their work with quiet industry.
Sometimes, two or three threads of 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 (.117 inch.--Translator's Note.); in two, on
one millimetre (.039 inch.--Translator's Note.); 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 varnish 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 elevation 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 completed; 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, or when she has too 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's 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 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 remember the sups of milk drawn from
our mother's breast. The Bee, therefore, knows nothing of the quantity
of provisions needed by her larva, whether from memory, from example
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 mistake demands a special tendency,
an unconscious impulse, an instinct, an inward voice that dictates the
measure to be apportioned.



CHAPTER 8. PARASITES.

In August or September, let us go into some gorge with bare and
sun-scorched sides. When we find a <DW72> well-baked by the summer 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
household 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 storing 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, watching 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 fortune for his children than the
non-producers come hastening up to contend for its possession. To one
who amasses there are sometimes 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 object of so much care, for whom that home was
built and those provisions stored, succumb, 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
transformation take place. For this new hatching, which is to turn a
grub into a Bee, for this general remodelling, the delicacy of which
demands absolute repose, all the precautions that make for safety have
been taken.

These precautions will be foiled. The enemy will succeed in penetrating
the impregnable 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 implement, 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 <DW72> on foot, inspects every nook
and corner, sounds 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 incessantly a few inches above the sandy expanse. 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 somewhere and begin to scratch and dig, finally laying bare a
subterranean gallery, of which there was nothing to betray the entrance;
but she can discern what is invisible to us. She penetrates into the
abode, remains there for a while and at last reappears to replace 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 newborn 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
Chrysis-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, Parnopes carnea by
name, boldly enters the burrow of Bembex rostrata at the very moment
when the mother is at home, bringing a fresh piece to her larva, whom
she feeds from day to day. To the elegant criminal, 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 paralysed 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!

It is written in the book of fate: everything 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. Disappeared 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 nomenclators have christened her Stilbum calens,
FAB. When Eumenes Amedei (A species of Mason-wasp.--Translator's Note.)
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 consumed and the secluded ones have hung their
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, weaklings 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 one, 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 by some invisible
thread. You make a movement; 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 motionless. 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
transformation-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
underground searches. When she has found the propitious place, suddenly
she will swoop down, lay her egg on the surface in that lightning
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 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-wasp 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 twisting with the Wasp, always at her rear,
without 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 underground, 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 also a member of the
Fly tribe; she is an Anthrax. (Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapter
2.--Translator's Note.) She has wide wings, spread horizontally, half
smoked and half transparent. She wears a dress of velvet, like the
Bombylius, her near neighbour in the official registers; but, though
the soft down is similar in fineness, it is very different in colour.
Anthrax is Greek for coal. It is a happy denomination, reminding us of
the Fly's mourning livery, a coal-black livery with silver tears. The
same deep mourning garbs those parasitic Bees, 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.

The word 'mimesis' has been invented for the express purpose of
designating the animal'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- in order to hide himself from the eyes of the birds of
prey when pecking in the fields; the Common Lizard 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 straw of the
threshing-floor, we used to talk of the Dragon, the monster which,
to inveigle people and snap them up with greater certainty, became
indistinguishable from a rock, the trunk of a tree, a bundle of twigs.
Since those happy days of artless credulity, scepticism has chilled my
imagination to some extent. 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 colour of the soil. Whence
this neglect to practise 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 consequently
to dye his pearl-embroidered coat, 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 example 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, animals 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 example of protective
mimicry with a host of examples to the contrary. What manner of law is
this which has at least ninety-nine exceptions in a hundred cases? Poor
human nature! There is a deceptive agreement between 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 immense 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 explanation 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 innumerable 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, 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. (For the
Praying Mantis, cf. "Social Life in the Insect World", by J.H. Fabre,
translated by Bernard Miall: chapters 5 to 7.--Translator's Note.)
Astute mimicry is even more necessary when the one to be duped is an
amphitryon at whose cost the parasite's family is to be established. The
Tachinae seem to declare as much: they are grey or greyish, of a colour
as undecided as the dusty soil on which they cower while waiting 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- though they be, the Tachinae 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 frequented,
as witness the glittering Chrysis, or the Melecta and the Crocisa, with
their white spots on a black ground.

We are also told that, the better to cozen his amphitryon, the parasite
adopts more or less the same shape and colouring; he turns himself, in
appearance, into a harmless neighbour, a worker belonging to the
same guild. Instance the Psithyrus, who lives at the expense of the
Bumble-bee. But in what, if you please, does Parnopes carnea resemble
the Bembex into whose home she penetrates in her presence? In what does
the Melecta resemble 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, failure would be certain,
for here, as among mankind, two of a trade never agree. An Osmia,
an Anthophora, a Chalicodoma 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 proprieties. She might easily find herself
with a dislocated shoulder or a mangled leg in return for a simple visit
which was perhaps prompted by no evil intention. Each for herself in her
own stronghold. But let a parasite appear, meditating foul play: that's
a very different thing. She can wear the trappings of Harlequin or of a
church-beadle; she can be the Clerus-beetle, in wing-cases of vermilion
with blue trimmings, or the Dioxys-bee, with a red scarf across her
black abdomen, and the mistress of the house will let her have her way,
or, if she become too pressing, 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 practice
your mimesis in order to receive a welcome from the Anthophora or the
Chalicodoma! A few hours spent with the insects themselves 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 better. The variety of combinations in
the domain of possible things is infinite. It is undeniable that, here
and there, cases occur in which the animal harmonizes with surrounding
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 exactly similar conditions, by inconsistencies so strongly
marked and so numerous that, having 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 Crioceris, that
coral-red Beetle who lives on the no less green leaves of the lily.

And it is not only a mistaken interpretation: 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
entomology did me the honour to visit my laboratory. I was showing
my collection of parasites. 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 Leucopsis, not one of whom enters the
Wasps' nest.'

'Then mimesis...?'

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

And, with the evidence, a whole series of conclusive examples, in front
of him, my learned visitor admitted with a good grace 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 troubling any longer about the costume of the parasite.
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 Leucopsis, 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-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. Tachinae and Melectae: those are the true
parasites, consumers of others' goods.

Can we say as much of the Chrysis or the Mutilla? In no wise. The
Scoliae, whose habits are known to us, are certainly not parasites. (The
habits of the Scolia-wasp have been described in different essays not
yet translated into English.--Translator's Note.) No one will accuse
them of stealing the food of others. Zealous workers, they seek and find
under ground the fat grubs on 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 Leucopsis, 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 without 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 acquired by indefatigable battues or by patient stalking
in which all the rules have been observed; only, the animal hunted is
defenceless and does not need to be laid low with a dagger-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
sportsman been denied to him who blows out the brains of a harmless
Rabbit, instead of waiting without flinching for the furious charge
of the Wild Boar and driving his hunting-knife into him behind his
shoulder? Besides, if the actual assault is 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 protected by the surrounding wall
of a cocoon. Of what prowess must not the mother be capable 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, 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 expense 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
insect leading the life of a parasite upon its fellows.

When the Chalicodoma of the Sheds works, in her thousands, at her
Cyclopean edifice, each has her own home, a sacred home where not one
of the tumultuous swarm, except 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 heedless
one mistakes her cell and so much as alights on the rim of a cup that
does not belong 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 wanderer 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 behave 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 passing 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 of tomorrow; hodie tibi, cras
mihi. Everything 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 similar. 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 besides 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.



CHAPTER 9. 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 consideration 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 endowed. Finding it to her advantage to do nothing,
bringing up her family free of expense, to the detriment of others, she
is alleged to have gradually inspired her race with an abhorrence for
work. The harvesting-tools, less and less often employed, dwindled
and perished as organs having no function; the species changed into
a different one; and finally idleness 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 labours and in a hurry to lay her
eggs, found, let us suppose, some convenient 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 progeny which duly inherited
the maternal slothfulness and handed this down in its turn, in a more
and more accentuated form, as generation followed on generation; for the
struggle for life made this expeditious way of establishing yourself one
of the most favourable conditions for the success of the offspring. 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 circumstances. Thus
the parasitic race was definitely 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 industrious ancestors. So, for instance,
the Psithyrus is extremely like the Bumble-bee, whose parasite and
descendant she is. The Stelis preserves the ancestral characteristics of
the Anthidium; the Coelioxys-bee recalls the Leaf-cutter.

Thus speak the evolutionists, with a wealth of evidence derived not only
from correspondence 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 extraordinary 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
favour: a joint of the palpi leaves me rather cold; a tuft of bristles
does not appear to me an unanswerable argument. I prefer to question 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 laziness which is
said to favour the animal's prosperity. I have also believed and I still
persist in believing that activity alone strengthens the present and
ensures the future 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: man, the son of
the Ape; duty, a foolish prejudice; conscience, a lure for the simple;
genius, neurosis; 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
summum bonum is the Chicago packer's dollar-chest! Enough, quite enough
of that, without having transformism 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 brutalities which, denying all that
gives some dignity to our wretched life, stifle our horizon under an
extinguisher of matter. Oh, don't come and forbid me to think, though it
were but a dream, of a responsible human personality, 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 exploiting others, why should man, its descendant,
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 parasite 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 <DW72> blistered by the sun. How busy she is, how
anxious! How briskly she covers every inch of the radiant expanse, how
indefatigable she is in 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 received 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 excellent 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 prolonged 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, certainly she was very
ill-inspired. Instead of rest, hard work; instead of a flourishing
family, a meagre progeny.

To generalities, which are necessarily vague, we will add some precise
facts. A certain Stelis (Stelis nasuta, LATR.) is a parasite of the
Mason-bee of the Walls. When the Chalicodoma has finished building
her dome of cells upon her pebble, the parasite 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 accumulation 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
almost as hard as rock.

The parasite pluckily sets to; the idler becomes a glutton for work.
Atom by atom, she perforates the general enclosure and scoops out a
shaft just sufficient for her passage; 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 myself find
a difficulty 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
patience 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 housebreaking. 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 eggs, the number varying from time to time. The
victuals will be the common property of all the new arrivals, whether
the son 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 housebreaker becomes a builder. At the foot
of the pebble, the Stelis collects a little of that red earth which
characterizes our stony plateaus grown with lavender and thyme; she
makes it into mortar by wetting it with saliva; 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 pebble 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 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
millimetres 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 neighbourhood, where the soil is as I
have described.

We see the Stelis, therefore, at first a rabid miner, using her
mandibles against the rock; next a kneader of clay and a plasterer
restoring 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 fashion it into wallets, in which to
heap up the pollen-dust which she gleaned from the flowers by means of
a brush carried on her abdomen. Or else, springing from a genus akin
to the cotton-workers, she used to build 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-presser or collector of resin-drops took to gnawing
hardened cement! She who once sipped the nectar of flowers made up her
mind to chew concrete! 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 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 Stelis 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 Anthidium. 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 unscrupulous
method, so you tell us, very favourable to the success of her race, by
virtue of its economy of time and trouble. The impression left by this
new policy was so profound that heredity bequeathed it to posterity,
in ever-increasing proportions, until at last parasitic habits became
definitely fixed. The Chalicodoma of the Sheds, followed by the
Three-horned Osmia, will teach us what to think of this conjecture.

I have described in an earlier chapter my installation of
Chalicodoma-hives against the 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, together
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 under 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 usurpation, 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 present labours to seek a quarrel with the
freebooter. 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, destroyed 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 Chalicodomae with different colours, to distinguish them
from one another. Some are occupied with building, others are disgorging
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 released. During
their absence, their cells have disappeared under a layer of recent
structures; 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 resulting from a prolonged incarceration:
they return to the cell which they have built, the beloved 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 occupied
by a strange egg and the door is securely fastened. To this reverse of
fortune the ousted ones retort with the brutal lex talionis: 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; sometimes and more frequently they
seize upon some one else's, even at a considerable 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
out her nefarious designs without the slightest interference or protest
from any of her neighbours, though these must necessarily include 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. And so the
population of the tile 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 provoked it. In
housing her egg, the Mason-bee displays a brutal indifference to the
fate of her neighbour's egg.

I see some of them afterwards busy provisioning, disgorging honey and
brushing pollen into the cell already completely provisioned; 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
opening closed up. Of my captives, one, less patient 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, behaving in all respects like my imprisoned
Chalicodomae.

The whole occurrence was too significant to be left without further
confirmation. I 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 imprison Mason-bees for a time in order to witness the
acts of violence which I have described. If you follow the work of the
swarm assiduously, you may occasionally find a surprise 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
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 behaviour, after their act of
violence, of the Masons who have smashed in a door, brutally 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 everything 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 provision honestly, nor meditate further
evil. The past is quite forgotten until a fresh disaster occurs.

To return to the parasites: a mother chanced to find herself the
mistress of another's nest. She took advantage of this to entrust
her egg to it. This expeditious method, so easy for the mother and so
favourable 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 transformed 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 probabilities, 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 evolutionists require,
have made her adopt forcible usurpation as an inveterate habit.
Moreover, 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 workers, 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 advantage is fresh in the
memory, dating from that 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 builder 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 towards idleness to her offspring. She knows
too well that activity 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 opportunities, 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 demolishing doors. The Stelis does something of the kind; but
who would think of proclaiming a relationship between the Chalicodoma
and her? The two have nothing in common. 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 relinquishing their trade to
become parasitic sluggards.

I also call, with no less insistence, for a descendant of the
Three-horned Osmia, a descendant given to demolishing party-walls. I
will describe later 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 secrets of the work of the Bee. (Cf. "Bramble-bees
and Others", by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos: chapters 1 to 7.--Translator's Note.) For three or four weeks,
each Osmia is scrupulously faithful 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 neighbour so much as
comes and looks in at the 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 these 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 belonging to some one else. They
bore through the stopper 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, 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 occupations. Her next work is to lay her egg and then
she conscientiously restores the demolished 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 come before it.
The partitions are broken down, the eggs eaten or thrown away, the
provisions swept outside and often even carried to a distance in great
lumps. Covered with dust from the loose plaster of the demolition,
floured all over 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, bursting 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 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-conditioned 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' dwellings. 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 become inbred in the race, I ask for a descendant of the
Osmia who eats her grandmother's egg in order to establish her own egg.

This descendant I shall not be shown; but I may be told that she is in
process of formation. The outrages which I have described are preparing
a future parasite. The transformists dogmatize about the past and
dogmatize about the future, but as seldom as possible talk to us about
the present. Transformations 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 directly 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 of "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, transformations are on the way. For mercy's
sake, cannot 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 robbed their neighbours with gusto, when occasion offered,
since the origin of their respective races, and who are working
industriously to create a parasite happy in doing nothing. Have they
succeeded? No. Will they succeed? Yes, people maintain. For the moment,
nothing. The Osmiae 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 parasite? 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 vegetarian 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 dictates 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 lower
already hold the Osmia's cocoons, while the upper contain the larva
which has nearly finished consuming its provisions and the topmost
show the victuals untouched, with the Osmia's egg upon them. It is a
cylindrical egg, rounded at both extremities, of a transparent white
and measuring four to five millimetres in length. (.156 to.195
inch.--Translator's Note.) It lies slantwise, one end of it resting on
the food and the other sticking 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. (.078 and.019
inch.--Translator's Note.) It is undeniably 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 occupied the top part, high
up above the honey. The extermination 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 fortnight 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 the Spotted Sapyga (Sapyga
punctata, V.L.)

Now where are we to class this Wasp, a true parasite in the strict
sense of the word, that is to say, a consumer of others' provisions. 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 Scoliae. Moreover, the masters of classification, so
scrupulous in their comparison of characteristics, agree in placing the
Sapygae immediately 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 transformed 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 questions about the whys and wherefores
of origins. Answer follows answer, is proclaimed true to-day and
recognized as false tomorrow; and the goddess Isis continues veiled.



CHAPTER 10. THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE MASON-BEE.

To illustrate the methods of those who batten on others' goods, the
plunderers 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 Chalicodoma 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
underfoot, 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 painful. It is scraped up atom by atom;
and, by means of saliva, 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 hundred paces away. The trowel of fresh mortar is soon spent,
either in adding another storey to the turret-shaped edifice, or in
cementing into the wall lumps of gravel that give it greater solidity.
The journeys in search of cement are renewed until the structure 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 sainfoin anywhere in the neighbourhood, 'tis there that
the Mason goes plundering by preference, 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 weariness, the same activity is maintained as
long 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 downwards, tip of her 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 equivalent to work, for, thus placed, she
blocks 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 perseverance than I can boast.

Such as it is, the result, which is probably 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 comprise 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 altogether a distance of 275 miles, which
is nearly half of the greatest dimension of France from north to south.
Afterwards, when, worn out with all this fatigue, the Bee retires to a
hiding-place to languish in solitude 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 offspring, 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 everything is in order in the beloved house: copious
rations of the first quality; a shelter against the winter frosts;
ramparts against incursions of the enemy. Everything is in order,
at least so she thinks; but, alas, what a mistake 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 ferocious law that sacrifices the worker for the idler's
benefit. What have we done, we and the insects, to be ground with
sovran indifference under the mill-stone of such wretchedness? Oh, what
terrible, what heart-rending questions the Mason-bee's misfortunes 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 exterminating 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.

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 afterwards 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 Chalicodoma, 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 whatever.

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 length not an atom remains, although 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 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 dwelling. 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 examining 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, before laying her own eggs, destroying the Chalicodoma's egg
and eating it, as the Osmiae do among themselves; or I picture the dying
thing, an irksome mass for the numerous 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 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
population, coming and going, humming and buzzing, 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, stalking 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 impatience 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 workyard, moves freely among the ranks of
the Masons and bides her time. If the owner be absent, 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 much mistaken.

When the parasite is gone, I inspect the home. I see nothing abnormal
on the surface of the mass. The sharper eye of the owner, when she gets
back, sees nothing either, for she continues the victualling without
betraying the least uneasiness. A strange egg, laid on the provisions,
would not escape her. I know how clean she keeps her warehouse; 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 conclusive, the
Dioxys's 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 surveying 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 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
penetrate; and the mother, returning with her pellet of green putty
to build the closing partition, does not see the usurping germ and is
ignorant of the danger. But here everything happens in broad daylight;
and this demands more cunning in the method of installation.

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 employed with such method that the
actual sealing 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 absolutely necessary for her to see to her
egg before the Mason-bee of the Sheds has disposed 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 closing 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 entirely. 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 confined 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 Chalicodoma. 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 suspicion 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
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, at its first inspiration, to exterminate whatever 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 Pebbles! 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
aggravates the crime. Hunger excuses many things; for lack of food, the
survivors on the raft of the Medusa indulged in a little cannibalism;
but here there is enough food and to spare. When there is more than she
needs, 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-bee's offspring must needs be stupidly sacrificed
on the top of provisions which will only grow mouldy and useless! I
should be reduced to the gloomy lucubrations of a Schopenhauer if I once
let myself begin on parasitism.

Such is a brief sketch of the two parasites 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 Anthrax, a Leucopsis and a
microscopic dagger-wearer. (Monodontomerus cupreus. For this and the
Anthrax, cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 and 3. The Leucopsis is
a Hymenopteron, the essay upon whom forms the concluding chapter of the
present volume.--Translator's Note.) 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 destroyed. 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
overawe whoso would annex her masonry. If, in her absence, one greatly
daring thinks of visiting the building, the owner soon appears upon the
scene and ousts her with the most discouraging 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 laying,
as long as they are not too much dilapidated. In the early stages of
the work, neighbours 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 over 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 precious 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 secondhand 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 contriving receptacles for provisions, are less clever
at preparing the resorts in which the cells are to be stacked. The
abandoned chambers 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 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 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.) (Cf. "Bramble-dwellers and Others": chapter
8.--Translator's Note.), 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 subdivides this space into
very irregular compartments 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 disposal in a frugal manner. The
material employed for the partitions is a green, vegetable putty, which
the Osmia must obtain by chewing the shredded leaves of a plant whose
nature 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
unadulterated. To give greater power of resistance 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 betrays 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 assiduous
visitors. Lastly, to complete the enumeration 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 cannot 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 Osmiae, Osmia tricornis, LATR., and Osmia Latreillii,
SPIN., both of whom are quite common. 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 exploiter 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 attending to her business
in peace. They share and share alike, as though by tacit agreement. Is
the Osmia discreet enough not to put upon the good-natured Mason and
to utilize only abandoned passages and 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 dividing 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 enjoyed by the Osmia in the home of the worker whom she
exploits. The common and peaceful swarming of the Mason-bee of 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
Chalicodomae. 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 indifference 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, on achieving the perfect state, were unable to open the
exit-door through the cement and who withered in their cells; they
contain dead larvae, turned into black, brittle cylinders; untouched
provisions, both mouldy and fresh, on which the egg has come to grief;
tattered cocoons; shreds of skins; relics of the transformation.

If we remove the nest of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds from its tile--a
nest sometimes quite eight inches thick--we find live inhabitants
only in a thin outer layer. All the remainder, 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 Anthrenus, 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. 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 oozing from some cracked pot. Notwithstanding 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 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 particular where
they find a shelter. The shapeless hovel, reduced to a fragment of a
wall, finds occupants, for the Mason's work must be exploited to the
utmost limits of possibility. 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 embankments or clay partitions, Hunting
Wasps--Pompili and Tripoxyla--store up small members of the Spider
tribe, including sometimes the Weaving Spiders who live in the same
ruins.

I have said nothing yet of the Chalicodoma of the Shrubs. My silence
is not due to negligence, but to the circumstance that I am almost
destitute of facts relating to her parasites. 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
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 Leucopsis, 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 explained. The Chalicodoma's masonry
does not last long on its frail support. The winter 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 already 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 remove 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 twig arouse distrust in the Dioxys
and other malefactors? For lack of a better explanation, I will leave it
at that.

If my idea is not an empty fancy, we must admit that the Chalicodoma 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 disaster, it is not unusual for the
grub-eaters, the Leucopsis and her rival, the pygmy Chalcis, to have
decimated the other half. I say nothing of Anthrax sinuata, whom I
sometimes see coming from the nests of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds; her
larva preys on the Three-horned Osmia, the Mason-bee's visitor.

All solitary though she be on her boulder, which would seem the proper
thing to keep away exploiters, the scourge of dense populations, 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 Leucopsis, two by the Stelis, one
by the Chalcis 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 removed 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.



CHAPTER 11. THE LEUCOPSES.

(This chapter should be read in conjunction with the essays entitled
"The Anthrax" and "Larval Dimorphism", forming chapters 2 and 4 of "The
Life of the Fly."--Translator's Note.)

Let us visit the nests of Chalicodoma muraria 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 morning, 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 newspapers, 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 indoors, soon tells us that,
though the devoured is always the wretched Mason-bee, the devourer
belongs to two different species. In the one case, the cylindrical form,
the creamy-white colouring and the little nipple constituting the head
reveal to us the larva of the Anthrax, which does not concern us at
present; in the other, the general structure and appearance betray the
grub of some Hymenopteron. The Mason's second exterminator is, in fact,
a Leucopsis (Leucopsis gigas, FAB.), a magnificent insect, stripped
black and yellow, with an abdomen rounded at the end and hollowed out,
as is also the back, into a groove to contain a long rapier, as slender
as a horsehair, which the creature unsheathes and drives through the
mortar right into the cell where it proposes to establish its egg.
Before occupying ourselves with its capacities as an inoculator, let us
learn how its larva lives in the invaded cell.

It is a hairless, legless, sightless grub, easily confused, by
inexperienced eyes, with those of various honey-gathering Hymenoptera.
Its more apparent characteristics consist of a colouring like that
of 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 like a bow bending round at one point. It is made up of
thirteen segments, including the head. This head, which is very small
compared 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
microscope. You then distinguish two delicate mandibles, 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 nothing at all. On
the other hand, we can quite easily, without arming the eye with a lens,
perceive the mouth-apparatus--and particularly 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 Leucopsis' invisible implements? His method of
consuming will tell us.

Like his prototype, the Anthrax, the Leucopsis 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 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 portion of fresh meat. With its mouth assiduously
applied to the unhappy creature's skin, the lethal grub fills itself and
waxes fat, while the fostering larva collapses and shrivels, retaining
just enough life, however, to resist decomposition. All that remains of
the decanted corpse is the skin, which, when softened 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 Leucopsis
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 Leucopsis 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
releasing.

I now see the use of the microscopic mandibles. Those two delicate
spikes are incapable 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 Leucopsis 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 opening 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 implements, that wise system which keeps the
provisions fresh for the consumer.

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 Leucopsis' 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 going on for twelve and fourteen days. Later,
we find nothing in the Mason-bee's cocoon except the Leucopsis' 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 until the end of June.

Then appears the nymph, which teaches us nothing striking; and at last
the perfect insect, whose hatching may be delayed until August. Its exit
from the Mason's fortress has no likeness to the strange method employed
by the Anthrax. Endowed with stout mandibles, the perfect insect splits
the ceiling of its abode by itself without much difficulty. At the
time of its deliverance, the Mason-bees, who work in May, have long
disappeared. 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 Leucopsis,
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
Leucopsis' offspring which she well knows how to turn to profit. It
depends but on herself 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 inoculation of the
eggs through the walls will begin shortly. Before witnessing this
curious performance, 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 remains packed in the slit and the
furrow. The delicate instrument thus almost completely encircles 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 prolonged into membranous wings which are
fastened tightly to the insect's flanks. Its function 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 unsheathed and used.

We will now remove this lid with the scissors, 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
slightest difficulty, but the part embedded in the groove at the end of
the abdomen offers a resistance 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 two latter are more substantial,
are hollowed out like the sides of a groove and, when uniting, form
a complete groove in which the filament is sheathed. This bivalvular
scabbard adheres loosely to the dorsal part; but, farther on, at the tip
of the abdomen and under the belly, it can no longer be detached, as
its valves are welded to the abdominal wall. Here, therefore, we find,
between the two joined protecting parts, a simple 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 thickness between a human hair and a horse-hair. Its tip is a
little rough, pointed and bevelled to some length down. The microscope
becomes necessary if we would see its real structure, 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 produces a
sort of file, a sort of rasp with very much blunted teeth. When pressed
on the 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 constituting a complete channel
or duct. Moreover, the two shorter pieces, considered together, can
move, lengthwise, in the groove that receives 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 magnifying-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 albimunous 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 inside the
outer trench and of the sliding, one over the other, of the two portions
of the former, the egg can be despatched to the end of the ovipositor
notwithstanding the absence of any muscular contraction, which is
impossible 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 underneath. 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 effort 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 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. (.546 inch--Translator's Note.) 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 Leucopsis' 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 insect's supreme aim is the egg;
and, so long as the least spark of life remains, it makes dying efforts
to lay.

Leucopsis gigas exploits the nests of the Mason-bee of the Pebbles and
the Mason-bee of the Sheds with equal zest. To observe 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 neighbouring 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 Leucopsis' 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 wastelands. 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 Leucopsis 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 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 indifferent
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, where 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 of July that I saw the inoculation begin on
my Chalicodoma sicula 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 almost to the end of the month, decreasing gradually in activity.
I count as many as twelve Leucopses 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
lowered 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 uniform in appearance, for the cells
have disappeared under a layer of plaster, a work of public interest to
which the whole swarm devotes 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 advance 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, guided by the wands of its antennae, never blunders.
Its choice is made. See it unsheathing its long instrument. The probe
points normally towards the surface and occupies nearly the central spot
between the two middle-legs. A wide dislocation appears on the back,
between the first and second segments 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 expended
is shown by the way in which the bladder quivers. At every moment we
expect 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 motionless, the only sign of its arduous labours being a
slight vibration. I see some perforators 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, in my
anxiety to follow the whole performance to the end, three long hours of
immobility for the insect, which is even more anxious to make sure of
board and lodging for its egg. But then is it not a task of the utmost
difficulty to introduce a hair into the thickness of a stone? To us,
with all the dexterity 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 substance traversed, the Leucopsis
perseveres, certain of succeeding; and she does succeed, although I am
still unable to understand her success. The material through which the
probe has to penetrate is not a porous substance; it is homogeneous and
compact, like our hardened cement. In vain do I direct my attention to
the exact point where the instrument 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 extreme
delicacy of the implement 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 been able to discover. What about a
dissolving fluid which would soften the mortar under 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
insert her auger through a slight rupture in the side of the reed.
As the wall was different, wood in the latter case and mortar in the
former, perhaps it will be best to look upon the matter 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
information was to be utilized when the Leucopsis finished her labours.

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, compensates 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. Moreover, the
compartments, which are very irregularly 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 underlying regions are full or empty. It is
quite impossible 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 excavations under my pencil-marks
bear witness to that; it always directs its apparatus towards 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 organs perceive? A smell? Not at all; I always had my doubts of
that and now I am certain of the contrary, after what I shall describe
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
attractive idea, but unfortunately the antennae play their part equally
well on a host of occasions when there are no vaults to reverberate. We
know nothing and are perhaps destined never to know anything of the real
value of the antennal sense, to which we have nothing analogous; but,
though it is impossible 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 surprise, that the great
majority of the cells visited by the Leucopsis' probe do not contain the
one thing which the insect is seeking, namely, the young larva of the
Mason-bee enclosed in its cocoon. Their contents consist of the
refuse so often met with in old Chalicodoma-nests: liquid honey left
unemployed, because the egg has perished; spoilt provisions, sometimes
mildewed, or sometimes a tarry mass; a dead larva, stiffened into a
brown cylinder; the shrivelled corpse of a perfect 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 odoriferous effluvia that can emanate from these relics
certainly possess very diverse characters. 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 Leucopsis does not distinguish between these various
cells and drives the probe into all of them indifferently, 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 Leucopsis, 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 importance
will not be apparent until the end; let us speak of something which
I was very far from suspecting when I was so assiduously watching the
nests of my Mason-bees.

The same cell can receive the Leucopsis' probe a number of times, at
intervals of several 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 many of these already
visited spots, concerning which I possessed the most authentic
documents, 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 before 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 insect, 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 herself to be discovering for the first time. However retentive
its memory for places may be, we cannot admit that the insect remembers
for weeks on end, as well as point by point, the topography of a nest
covering a surface of some square yards. Its recollections, if it have
any, serve it badly; the outward appearance gives it no information; and
its drill enters 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 newcomer's zeal because their
predecessors have left no trace of their passage. In one way or another,
the same cell is exposed to manifold layings, though its contents, the
Chalicodoma-grub, be only the bare ration of a single Leucopsis-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 repeated
before my eyes as often as four times. Nothing tells us that this number
was not exceeded in my absence. The little that I observed 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, because of
its horny nature, can have but a very dull sense of touch. The insect
is apprised of the contents of the cell only by the end of that long
horse-hair, a not very trustworthy witness, I should imagine. The
absence 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 contents of the cavern which it has entered; and the case must
be the same with the rigid filament of the Leucopses.

Now that the thread has reached its goal, what does the cell contain?
Mildewed honey, dust and rubbish, a shrivelled larva, or a larva in good
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
matter, 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 exact spot where the tiny speck lies in those spacious and
mysterious regions. I go so far as to believe that the ovipositor tells
the insect 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 Leucopses had finished
their borings, 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 disappointment
as I have rarely known awaited me. The cells which I had seen, actually
seen, with my own eyes, pierced by the probe two or three or even four
times, contained but one Leucopsis-grub, one alone, eating away at its
Chalicodoma. Others, which had also been repeatedly probed, contained
spoilt remnants, but never a Leucopsis. O holy patience, give me the
courage to begin again! Dispel the darkness and deliver me from doubt!

I begin again. The Leucopsis-grub is familiar to me; I can recognize
it, without the possibility of a mistake, in the nests of both the
Chalicodoma of the Pebbles and the Chalicodoma 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 perfect
state; others give me the larva of the Anthrax; others--very numerous,
these--give me the larva of the Leucopsis. And this last is
alone, always alone, invariably alone. The whole thing is utterly
incomprehensible when one knows, as I know, how many times the probe
entered those cells.

My perplexity only increases when, on the return of summer, I witness
for the second time the Leucopsis' repeated operations on the same cells
and for the second time find a single 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 better,
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
information. 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 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 Leucopses are
beginning to visit busily both Mason-bee's 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
edifices of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I am anxious not to complete
the destruction of my home hives, already so sorely tried by my
experiments; 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
collection on the same day, with the prudence and care which only the
laboratory-table permits. The results at first fall far short of my
expectations. 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 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 Leucopsis? 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 cocoons 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-colonised 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 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 information. Those of the
Mason-bee of the Sheds have to be chipped away with a hammer before 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 certain that the Leucopsis' 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 inadvertence, to the same place, or are the work of different
individuals unaware of the previous borings, those 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 authority
for looking upon this number as an outside limit. Who could say, when
the perforators 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 lengthened out
into a neck or pedicle, which is as long as the egg proper. This neck is
somewhat wrinkled, sinuous and as a rule considerably 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. (About one-eighth of an inch.--Translator's Note.) 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 Leucopsis, I would readily have believed that every
Hymenopteron armed with a long probe inserts her eggs into the victim's
sides, as the Ichneumon-flies do to the Caterpillars. I mention this for
the benefit of any who may be under the same erroneous impression.

The Leucopsis' egg is not even laid upon the Mason-bee's larva; it is
hung by its bent pedicle to the fibrous wall of the cocoon. When I go to
work very delicately, so as not to disturb the arrangement in knocking
the nest off its support, and then extract 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 Leucopsis' probe does not
penetrate beyond the cocoon traversed; and the egg remains fastened to
the ceiling, in the crook of some silky thread, by means of its hooked
pedicle.


INDEX.

Amazon Ant (see Red Ant).

Ammophila.

Ammophila hirsuta (see Hairy Ammophila).

Ant (see also Black Ant, Red Ant).

Anthidium (see also Cotton-bee, Diadem Anthidium).

Anthophora (see also Hairy-footed Anthophora).

Anthrax (see also Anthrax sinuata).

Anthrax sinuata.

Anthrenus.

Ape.

Aphis.

Baboon.

Bastien.

Bee.

Bembex (see also Bembex rostrata).

Bembex rostrata.

Black Ant.

Blanchard, Emile.

Blue Osmia.

Bombylius.

Bumble-bee.

Butterfly.

Cabbage-caterpillar.

Cagliostro.

Carrier-pigeon.

Castelnau de la Porte, Francis Comte de.

Cat.

Caterpillar (see also Cabbage-caterpillar, Grey Worm, Processionary
Caterpillar, Spurge-caterpillar).

Cerceris (see also Great Cerceris).

Cerceris tuberculata (see Great Cerceris).

Cetonia.

Chalcis.

Chalicodoma (see Mason-bee).

Chalicodoma muraria (see Mason-bee of the Walls).

Chalicodoma pyrenaica, C. pyrrhopeza, C. rufitarsis, C. sicula (see
Mason-bee of the Sheds).

Chalicodoma rufescens (see Mason-bee of the Shrubs).

Chat.

Chrysis (see also Parnopes carnea, Stilbum calens).

Clerus.

Coelyoxis.

Common Lizard.

Common Wasp.

Cornelius Nepos.

Cotton-bee.

Cricket.

Crioceris.

Crocisa.

Darwin, Charles Robert.

Darwin, Erasmus.

Diadem Anthidium.

Dioxys.

Dioxys cincta (see Dioxys).

Dog.

Dufour, Jean Marie Leon.

Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis.

Duruy, Jean Victor.

Euclid.

Eumenes Amadei.

Eyed Lizard.

Fabre, Mlle. Aglae, the author's daughter.

Fabre, Mlle. Antonia, the author's daughter.

Fabre, Mlle. Claire, the author's daughter.

Fabre, Mlle. Lucie, the author's granddaughter.

Favier, the author's factotum.

Fly.

Franklin, Benjamin.

Gad-fly.

Gnat.

Golden Wasp (see Chrysis).

Gold-fish.

Grasshopper (see Green Grasshopper).

Great Cerceris.

Green Grasshopper.

Grey Lizard.

Grey Worm.

Hairy Ammophila.

Hairy-footed Anthophora.

Halictus.

Hive-bee.

Huber, Francois.

Ichneumon-fly.

Lacordaire, Jean Theodore.

Lamb.

Lark.

Latreille's Osmia.

Leaf-cutter (see Megachile).

Leucopsis.

Leucopsis dorsigera.

Leucopsis gigas (see Leucopsis).

Le Vaillant, Francois.

Lion.

Lizard (see Common Lizard, Eyed Lizard, Grey Lizard).

Locust.

Loriol, Dr.

Loriol, Mme.

Lucas, Pierre Hippolyte.

Macmillan and Co., Ltd.

"Mademoiselle Mori", author of.

Mantis (see Praying Mantis).

Martin.

Mason-bee (see also the varieties below).

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

Mason-bee of the Sheds.

Mason-bee of the Shrubs.

Mason-bee of the Walls.

Megachile.

Megachile apicalis (see Megachile).

Melecta.

Meloe (see Oil-beetle).

Mesmer.

Miall, Bernard.

Monodontomerus cupreus.

Morawitz' Osmia.

Moth.

Mutilla.

Napoleon III., the Emperor.

Newton, Sir Isaac.

Oil-beetle.

Oryctes.

Osmia (see also the varieties below).

Osmia cyanea (see Blue Osmia).

Osmia cyanoxantha.

Osmia Latreillii (see Latreille's Osmia).

Osmia Morawitzi (see Morawitz' Osmia).

Osmia tricornis (see Three-horned Osmia).

Osmia tridentata (see Three-pronged Osmia).

Ox.

Parnopes carnea.

Perez, Professor Jean.

Philanthus apivorus.

Polyergus rufescens (see Red Ant).

Pompilus.

Praying Mantis.

Processionary Caterpillar.

Psithyrus.

Ptinus.

Rabbit.

Reaumur, Rene Antoine Ferchault de.

Red Ant.

Republican (see Social Weaver-bird).

Resin-bee.

Rhinoceros-beetle (see Oryctes).

Ringed Calicurgus (see Pompilus).

Rodwell, Miss Frances.

Rose-chafer (see Cetonia).

Sacred Beetle.

Sapyga punctata (see Spotted Sapyga).

Saw-fly.

Scolia.

Sheep.

Sicilian Mason-bee (see Mason-bee of the Sheds).

Social Bee (see Hive-bee).

Social Wasp (see Common Wasp).

Social Weaver-bird.

Sphex (see also Yellow-winged Sphex.)

Spider.

Spotted Sapyga.

Spurge-caterpillar.

Stelis (see also Stelis nasuta).

Stelis nasuta.

Stilbum calens.

Swallow.

Swift.

Tachina.

Tachytes.

Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander.

Three-horned Osmia.

Three-pronged Osmia.

Tiger.

Toussenel, Alphonse.

Tripoxylon.

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

Wagtail (see White Wagtail).

Warted Cerceris (see Great Cerceris).

Wasp (see also Common Wasp).

Weevil.

White Wagtail.

Wild Boar.

Wolf.

Yellow-winged Sphex.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre

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