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

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 cripples, 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 slope 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 coloured 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 slope 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 nigger-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 slope 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 slope 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-coloured 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-coloured 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 slope 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.