When calm is restored, she resumes her attitude, ceaselessly pondering the harsh problem of life:

"Shall I dine to-day, or not?"

Certain privileged beings, exempt from those anxieties, have food in abundance and need not struggle to obtain it. Such is the Gentle, who swims blissfully in the broth of the putrefying Adder. Others—and, by a strange irony of fate, these are generally the most gifted—only manage to eat by dint of craft and patience.

You are of their company, O my industrious Epeirae! So that you may dine, you spend your treasures of patience nightly; and often without result. I sympathize with your woes, for I, who am as concerned as you about my daily bread, I also doggedly spread my net, the net for catching ideas, a more elusive and less substantial prize than the Moth. Let us not lose heart. The best part of life is not in the present, still less in the past; it lies in the future, the domain of hope. Let us wait.

All day long, the sky, of a uniform grey, has appeared to be brewing a storm. In spite of the threatened downpour, my neighbour, who is a shrewd weather-prophet, has come out of the cypress-tree and begun to renew her web at the regular hour. Her forecast is correct: it will be a fine night. See, the steaming-pan of the clouds splits open; and, through the apertures, the moon peeps, inquisitively. I too, lantern in hand, am peeping. A gust of wind from the north clears the realms on high; the sky becomes magnificent; perfect calm reigns below. The Moths begin their nightly rounds. Good! One is caught, a mighty fine one. The Spider will dine to-day.

What happens next, in an uncertain light, does not lend itself to accurate observation. It is better to turn to those Garden Spiders who never leave their web and who hunt mainly in the daytime. The Banded and the Silky Epeira, both of whom live on the rosemaries in the enclosure, shall show us in broad daylight the innermost details of the tragedy.

I myself place on the lime-snare a victim of my selecting. Its six legs are caught without more ado. If the insect raises one of its tarsi and pulls towards itself, the treacherous thread follows, unwinds slightly and, without letting go or breaking, yields to the captive's desperate jerks. Any limb released only tangles the others still more and is speedily recaptured by the sticky matter. There is no means of escape, except by smashing the trap with a sudden effort whereof even powerful insects are not always capable.

Warned by the shaking of the net, the Epeira hastens up; she turns round about the quarry; she inspects it at a distance, so as to ascertain the extent of the danger before attacking. The strength of the snareling will decide the plan of campaign. Let us first suppose the usual case, that of an average head of game, a Moth or Fly of some sort. Facing her prisoner, the Spider contracts her abdomen slightly and touches the insect for a moment with the end of her spinnerets; then, with her front tarsi, she sets her victim spinning. The Squirrel, in the moving cylinder of his cage, does not display a more graceful or nimbler dexterity. A cross-bar of the sticky spiral serves as an axis for the tiny machine, which turns, turns swiftly, like a spit. It is a treat to the eyes to see it revolve.

What is the object of this circular motion? It is this: the brief contact of the spinnerets has given a starting-point for a thread, which the Spider must now draw from her silk warehouse and gradually roll around the captive, so as to swathe him in a winding-sheet which will overpower any effort made. It is the exact process employed in our wire-mills: a motor-driven spool revolves and, by its action, draws the wire through the narrow eyelet of a steel plate, making it of the fineness required, and, with the same movement, winds it round and round its collar.

Even so with the Epeira's work. The Spider's front tarsi are the motor; the revolving spool is the captured insect; the steel eyelet is the aperture of the spinnerets. To bind the subject with precision and dispatch nothing could be better than this inexpensive and highly effective method.

Less frequently, a second process is employed. With a quick movement, the Spider herself turns round about the motionless insect, crossing the web first at the top and then at the bottom and gradually placing the fastenings of her line. The great elasticity of the lime-threads allows the Epeira to fling herself time after time right into the web and to pass through it without damaging the net.

Let us now suppose the case of some dangerous game: a Praying Mantis, for instance, brandishing her lethal limbs, each hooked and fitted with a double saw; an angry Hornet, darting her awful sting; a sturdy Beetle, invincible under his horny armour. These are exceptional morsels, hardly ever known to the Epeirae. Will they be accepted, if supplied by my stratagems?

They are, but not without caution. The game is seen to be perilous of approach and the Spider turns her back upon it instead of facing it; she trains her rope-cannon upon it. Quickly the hind-legs draw from the spinnerets something much better than single cords. The whole silk-battery works at one and the same time, firing a regular volley of ribbons and sheets, which a wide movement of the legs spreads fan-wise and flings over the entangled prisoner. Guarding against sudden starts, the Epeira casts her armfuls of bands on the front- and hind-parts, over the legs and over the wings, here, there and everywhere, extravagantly. The most fiery prey is promptly mastered under this avalanche. In vain the Mantis tries to open her saw-toothed arm-guards; in vain the Hornet makes play with her dagger; in vain the Beetle stiffens his legs and arches his back: a fresh wave of threads swoops down and paralyses every effort.

The ancient retiarius, when pitted against a powerful wild beast, appeared in the arena with a rope-net folded over his left shoulder. The animal made its spring. The man, with a sudden movement of his right arm, cast the net after the manner of the fisherman; he covered the beast and tangled it in the meshes. A thrust of the trident gave the quietus to the vanquished foe.

The Epeira acts in like fashion, with this advantage, that she is able to renew her armful of fetters. Should the first not suffice, a second instantly follows and another and yet another, until the reserves of silk become exhausted.

When all movement ceases under the snowy winding-sheet, the Spider goes up to her bound prisoner. She has a better weapon than the bestiarius' trident: she has her poison-fangs. She gnaws at the Locust, without undue persistence, and then withdraws, leaving the torpid patient to pine away.

These lavished, far-flung ribbons threaten to exhaust the factory; it would be much more economical to resort to the method of the spool; but, to turn the machine, the Spider would have to go up to it and work it with her leg. This is too risky; and hence the continuous spray of silk, at a safe distance. When all is used up, there is more to come.

Still, the Epeira seems concerned at this excessive outlay. When circumstances permit, she gladly returns to the mechanism of the revolving spool. I saw her practice this abrupt change of tactics on a big Beetle, with a smooth, plump body, which lent itself admirably to the rotary process. After depriving the beast of all power of movement, she went up to it and turned her corpulent victim as she would have done with a medium-sized Moth.

But with the Praying Mantis, sticking out her long legs and her spreading wings, rotation is no longer feasible. Then, until the quarry is thoroughly subdued, the spray of bandages goes on continuously, even to the point of drying up the silk glands. A capture of this kind is ruinous. It is true that, except when I interfered, I have never seen the Spider tackle that formidable provender.

Be it feeble or strong, the game is now neatly trussed, by one of the two methods. The next move never varies. The bound insect is bitten, without persistency and without any wound that shows. The Spider next retires and allows the bite to act, which it soon does. She then returns.

If the victim be small, a Clothes-moth, for instance, it is consumed on the spot, at the place where it was captured. But, for a prize of some importance, on which she hopes to feast for many an hour, sometimes for many a day, the Spider needs a sequestered dining-room, where there is naught to fear from the stickiness of the network. Before going to it, she first makes her prey turn in the converse direction to that of the original rotation. Her object is to free the nearest spokes, which supplied pivots for the machinery. They are essential factors which it behoves her to keep intact, if need be by sacrificing a few cross-bars.

It is done; the twisted ends are put back into position. The well-trussed game is at last removed from the web and fastened on behind with a thread. The Spider then marches in front and the load is trundled across the web and hoisted to the resting-floor, which is both an inspection-post and a dining-hall. When the Spider is of a species that shuns the light and possesses a telegraph-line, she mounts to her daytime hiding-place along this line, with the game bumping against her heels.

While she is refreshing herself, let us enquire into the effects of the little bite previously administered to the silk-swathed captive. Does the Spider kill the patient with a view to avoiding unseasonable jerks, protests so disagreeable at dinner-time? Several reasons make me doubt it. In the first place, the attack is so much veiled as to have all the appearance of a mere kiss. Besides, it is made anywhere, at the first spot that offers. The expert slayers employ methods of the highest precision: they give a stab in the neck, or under the throat; they wound the cervical nerve-centres, the seat of energy. The paralysers, those accomplished anatomists, poison the motor nerve-centres, of which they know the number and position. The Epeira possesses none of this fearsome knowledge. She inserts her fangs at random, as the Bee does her sting. She does not select one spot rather than another; she bites indifferently at whatever comes within reach. This being so, her poison would have to possess unparalleled virulence to produce a corpse-like inertia no matter which the point attacked. I can scarcely believe in instantaneous death resulting from the bite, especially in the case of insects, with their highly-resistant organisms.

Besides, is it really a corpse that the Epeira wants, she who feeds on blood much more than on flesh? It were to her advantage to suck a live body, wherein the flow of the liquids, set in movement by the pulsation of the dorsal vessel, that rudimentary heart of insects, must act more freely than in a lifeless body, with its stagnant fluids. The game which the Spider means to suck dry might very well not be dead. This is easily ascertained.

I place some Locusts of different species on the webs in my menagerie, one on this, another on that. The Spider comes rushing up, binds the prey, nibbles at it gently and withdraws, waiting for the bite to take effect. I then take the insect and carefully strip it of its silken shroud. The Locust is not dead; far from it; one would even think that he had suffered no harm. I examine the released prisoner through the lens in vain; I can see no trace of a wound.

Can he be unscathed, in spite of the sort of kiss which I saw given to him just now? You would be ready to say so, judging by the furious way in which he kicks in my fingers. Nevertheless, when put on the ground, he walks awkwardly, he seems reluctant to hop. Perhaps it is a temporary trouble, caused by his terrible excitement in the web. It looks as though it would soon pass.

I lodge my Locusts in cages, with a lettuce-leaf to console them for their trials; but they will not be comforted. A day elapses, followed by a second. Not one of them touches the leaf of salad; their appetite has disappeared. Their movements become more uncertain, as though hampered by irresistible torpor. On the second day they are dead, everyone irrecoverably dead.

The Epeira, therefore, does not incontinently kill her prey with her delicate bite; she poisons it so as to produce a gradual weakness, which gives the blood-sucker ample time to drain her victim, without the least risk, before the rigor mortis stops the flow of moisture.

The meal lasts quite twenty-four hours, if the joint be large; and to the very end the butchered insect retains a remnant of life, a favourable condition for the exhausting of the juices. Once again, we see a skilful method of slaughter, very different from the tactics in use among the expert paralysers or slayers. Here there is no display of anatomical science. Unacquainted with the patient's structure, the Spider stabs at random. The virulence of the poison does the rest.

There are, however, some very few cases in which the bite is speedily mortal. My notes speak of an Angular Epeira grappling with the largest Dragon-fly in my district (Aeshna grandis, Lin.) I myself had entangled in the web this head of big game, which is not often captured by the Epeirae. The net shakes violently, seems bound to break its moorings. The Spider rushes from her leafy villa, runs boldly up to the giantess, flings a single bundle of ropes at her and, without further precautions, grips her with her legs, tries to subdue her and then digs her fangs into the Dragon-fly's back. The bite is prolonged in such a way as to astonish me. This is not the perfunctory kiss with which I am already familiar; it is a deep, determined wound. After striking her blow, the Spider retires to a certain distance and waits for her poison to take effect.

I at once remove the Dragon-fly. She is dead, really and truly dead. Laid upon my table and left alone for twenty-four hours, she makes not the slightest movement. A prick of which my lens cannot see the marks, so sharp-pointed are the Epeira's weapons, was enough, with a little insistence, to kill the powerful animal. Proportionately, the Rattlesnake, the Horned Viper, the Trigonocephalus and other ill-famed serpents produce less paralysing effects upon their victims.

And these Epeirae, so terrible to insects, I am able to handle without any fear. My skin does not suit them. If I persuaded them to bite me, what would happen to me? Hardly anything. We have more cause to dread the sting of a nettle than the dagger which is fatal to Dragon-flies. The same virus acts differently upon this organism and that, is formidable here and quite mild there. What kills the insect may easily be harmless to us. Let us not, however, generalize too far. The Narbonne Lycosa, that other enthusiastic insect-huntress, would make us pay dearly if we attempted to take liberties with her.

It is not uninteresting to watch the Epeira at dinner. I light upon one, the Banded Epeira, at the moment, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when she has captured a Locust. Planted in the centre of the web, on her resting-floor, she attacks the venison at the joint of a haunch. There is no movement, not even of the mouth-parts, so far as I am able to discover. The mouth lingers, close-applied, at the point originally bitten. There are no intermittent mouthfuls, with the mandibles moving backwards and forwards. It is a sort of continuous kiss.

I visit my Epeira at intervals. The mouth does not change its place. I visit her for the last time at nine o'clock in the evening. Matters stand exactly as they did: after six hours' consumption, the mouth is still sucking at the lower end of the right haunch. The fluid contents of the victim are transferred to the ogress's belly, I know not how.

Next morning, the Spider is still at table. I take away her dish. Naught remains of the Locust but his skin, hardly altered in shape, but utterly drained and perforated in several places. The method, therefore, was changed during the night. To extract the non-fluent residue, the viscera and muscles, the stiff cuticle had to be tapped here, there and elsewhere, after which the tattered husk, placed bodily in the press of the mandibles, would have been chewed, re-chewed and finally reduced to a pill, which the sated Spider throws up. This would have been the end of the victim, had I not taken it away before the time.

Whether she wound or kill, the Epeira bites her captive somewhere or other, no matter where. This is an excellent method on her part, because of the variety of the game that comes her way. I see her accepting with equal readiness whatever chance may send her: Butterflies and Dragon-flies, Flies and Wasps, small Dung-beetles and Locusts. If I offer her a Mantis, a Bumble-bee, an Anoxia—the equivalent of the common Cockchafer—and other dishes probably unknown to her race, she accepts all and any, large and small, thin-skinned and horny-skinned, that which goes afoot and that which takes winged flight. She is omnivorous, she preys on everything, down to her own kind, should the occasion offer.

Had she to operate according to individual structure, she would need an anatomical dictionary; and instinct is essentially unfamiliar with generalities: its knowledge is always confined to limited points. The Cerceres know their Weevils and their Buprestis-beetles absolutely; the Sphex their Grasshoppers, their Crickets and their Locusts; the Scoliae their Cetonia- and Oryctes-grubs. (The Scolia is a Digger-wasp, like the Cerceris and the Sphex, and feeds her larvae on the grubs of the Cetonia, or Rose-chafer, and the Oryctes, or Rhinoceros-beetle.—Translator's Note.) Even so the other paralysers. Each has her own victim and knows nothing of any of the others.

The same exclusive tastes prevail among the slayers. Let us remember, in this connection, Philanthus apivorus and, especially, the Thomisus, the comely Spider who cuts Bees' throats. They understand the fatal blow, either in the neck or under the chin, a thing which the Epeira does not understand; but, just because of this talent, they are specialists. Their province is the Domestic Bee.

Animals are a little like ourselves: they excel in an art only on condition of specializing in it. The Epeira, who, being omnivorous, is obliged to generalize, abandons scientific methods and makes up for this by distilling a poison capable of producing torpor and even death, no matter what the point attacked.

Recognizing the large variety of game, we wonder how the Epeira manages not to hesitate amid those many diverse forms, how, for instance, she passes from the Locust to the Butterfly, so different in appearance. To attribute to her as a guide an extensive zoological knowledge were wildly in excess of what we may reasonably expect of her poor intelligence. The thing moves, therefore it is worth catching: this formula seems to sum up the Spider's wisdom.

THE TELEGRAPH-WIRE.

Of the six Garden Spiders that form the object of my observations, two only, the Banded and the Silky Epeira, remain constantly in their webs, even under the blinding rays of a fierce sun. The others, as a rule, do not show themselves until nightfall. At some distance from the net they have a rough-and-ready retreat in the brambles, an ambush made of a few leaves held together by stretched threads. It is here that, for the most part, they remain in the daytime, motionless and sunk in meditation.

But the shrill light that vexes them is the joy of the fields. At such times the Locust hops more nimbly than ever, more gaily skims the Dragon-fly. Besides, the limy web, despite the rents suffered during the night, is still in serviceable condition. If some giddy-pate allow himself to be caught, will the Spider, at the distance whereto she has retired, be unable to take advantage of the windfall? Never fear. She arrives in a flash. How is she apprised? Let us explain the matter.

The alarm is given by the vibration of the web, much more than by the sight of the captured object. A very simple experiment will prove this. I lay upon a Banded Epeira's lime-threads a Locust that second asphyxiated with carbon disulphide. The carcass is placed in front, or behind, or at either side of the Spider, who sits moveless in the centre of the net. If the test is to be applied to a species with a daytime hiding-place amid the foliage, the dead Locust is laid on the web, more or less near the centre, no matter how.

In both cases, nothing happens at first. The Epeira remains in her motionless attitude, even when the morsel is at a short distance in front of her. She is indifferent to the presence of the game, does not seem to perceive it, so much so that she ends by wearing out my patience. Then, with a long straw, which enables me to conceal myself slightly, I set the dead insect trembling.

That is quite enough. The Banded Epeira and the Silky Epeira hasten to the central floor; the others come down from the branch; all go to the Locust, swathe him with tape, treat him, in short, as they would treat a live prey captured under normal conditions. It took the shaking of the web to decide them to attack.

Perhaps the grey colour of the Locust is not sufficiently conspicuous to attract attention by itself. Then let us try red, the brightest colour to our retina and probably also to the Spiders'. None of the game hunted by the Epeirae being clad in scarlet, I make a small bundle out of red wool, a bait of the size of a Locust. I glue it to the web.

My stratagem succeeds. As long as the parcel is stationary, the Spider is not roused; but, the moment it trembles, stirred by my straw, she runs up eagerly.

There are silly ones who just touch the thing with their legs and, without further enquiries, swathe it in silk after the manner of the usual game. They even go so far as to dig their fangs into the bait, following the rule of the preliminary poisoning. Then and then only the mistake is recognized and the tricked Spider retires and does not come back, unless it be long afterwards, when she flings the lumbersome object out of the web.

There are also clever ones. Like the others, these hasten to the red-woollen lure, which my straw insidiously keeps moving; they come from their tent among the leaves as readily as from the centre of the web; they explore it with their palpi and their legs; but, soon perceiving that the thing is valueless, they are careful not to spend their silk on useless bonds. My quivering bait does not deceive them. It is flung out after a brief inspection.

Still, the clever ones, like the silly ones, run even from a distance, from their leafy ambush. How do they know? Certainly not by sight. Before recognizing their mistake, they have to hold the object between their legs and even to nibble at it a little. They are extremely short-sighted. At a hand's-breadth's distance, the lifeless prey, unable to shake the web, remains unperceived. Besides, in many cases, the hunting takes place in the dense darkness of the night, when sight, even if it were good, would not avail.

If the eyes are insufficient guides, even close at hand, how will it be when the prey has to be spied from afar? In that case, an intelligence apparatus for long-distance work becomes indispensable. We have no difficulty in detecting the apparatus.

Let us look attentively behind the web of any Epeira with a daytime hiding-place: we shall see a thread that starts from the centre of the network, ascends in a slanting line outside the plane of the web and ends at the ambush where the Spider lurks all day. Except at the central point, there is no connection between this thread and the rest of the work, no interweaving with the scaffolding-threads. Free of impediment, the line runs straight from the centre of the net to the ambush-tent. Its length averages twenty-two inches. The Angular Epeira, settled high up in the trees, has shown me some as long as eight or nine feet.

There is no doubt that this slanting line is a foot-bridge which allows the Spider to repair hurriedly to the web, when summoned by urgent business, and then, when her round is finished, to return to her hut. In fact, it is the road which I see her follow, in going and coming. But is that all? No; for, if the Epeira had no aim in view but a means of rapid transit between her tent and the net, the foot-bridge would be fastened to the upper edge of the web. The journey would be shorter and the slope less steep.

Why, moreover, does this line always start in the centre of the sticky network and nowhere else? Because that is the point where the spokes meet and, therefore, the common centre of vibration. Anything that moves upon the web sets it shaking. All then that is needed is a thread issuing from this central point to convey to a distance the news of a prey struggling in some part or other of the net. The slanting cord, extending outside the plane of the web, is more than a foot-bridge: it is, above all, a signalling-apparatus, a telegraph-wire.

Let us try experiment. I place a Locust on the network. Caught in the sticky toils, he plunges about. Forthwith, the Spider issues impetuously from her hut, comes down the foot-bridge, makes a rush for the Locust, wraps him up and operates on him according to rule. Soon after, she hoists him, fastened by a line to her spinneret, and drags him to her hiding-place, where a long banquet will be held. So far, nothing new: things happen as usual.

I leave the Spider to mind her own affairs for some days before I interfere with her. I again propose to give her a Locust; but this time I first cut the signalling-thread with a touch of the scissors, without shaking any part of the edifice. The game is then laid on the web. Complete success: the entangled insect struggles, sets the net quivering; the Spider, on her side, does not stir, as though heedless of events.

The idea might occur to one that, in this business, the Epeira stays motionless in her cabin since she is prevented from hurrying down, because the foot-bridge is broken. Let us undeceive ourselves: for one road open to her there are a hundred, all ready to bring her to the place where her presence is now required. The network is fastened to the branches by a host of lines, all of them very easy to cross. Well, the Epeira embarks upon none of them, but remains moveless and self-absorbed.

Why? Because her telegraph, being out of order, no longer tells her of the shaking of the web. The captured prey is too far off for her to see it; she is all unwitting. A good hour passes, with the Locust still kicking, the Spider impassive, myself watching. Nevertheless, in the end, the Epeira wakes up: no longer feeling the signalling-thread, broken by my scissors, as taut as usual under her legs, she comes to look into the state of things. The web is reached, without the least difficulty, by one of the lines of the framework, the first that offers. The Locust is then perceived and forthwith enswathed, after which the signalling-thread is remade, taking the place of the one which I have broken. Along this road the Spider goes home, dragging her prey behind her.

My neighbour, the mighty Angular Epeira, with her telegraph-wire nine feet long, has even better things in store for me. One morning I find her web, which is now deserted, almost intact, a proof that the night's hunting has not been good. The animal must be hungry. With a piece of game for a bait, I hope to bring her down from her lofty retreat.

I entangle in the web a rare morsel, a Dragon-fly, who struggles desperately and sets the whole net a-shaking. The other, up above, leaves her lurking-place amid the cypress-foliage, strides swiftly down along her telegraph-wire, comes to the Dragon-fly, trusses her and at once climbs home again by the same road, with her prize dangling at her heels by a thread. The final sacrifice will take place in the quiet of the leafy sanctuary.

A few days later I renew my experiment under the same conditions, but, this time, I first cut the signalling-thread. In vain I select a large Dragon-fly, a very restless prisoner; in vain I exert my patience: the Spider does not come down all day. Her telegraph being broken, she receives no notice of what is happening nine feet below. The entangled morsel remains where it lies, not despised, but unknown. At nightfall the Epeira leaves her cabin, passes over the ruins of her web, finds the Dragon-fly and eats him on the spot, after which the net is renewed.

The Epeirae, who occupy a distant retreat by day, cannot do without a private wire that keeps them in permanent communication with the deserted web. All of them have one, in point of fact, but only when age comes, age prone to rest and to long slumbers. In their youth, the Epeirae, who are then very wide awake, know nothing of the art of telegraphy. Besides, their web, a short-lived work whereof hardly a trace remains on the morrow, does not allow of this kind of industry. It is no use going to the expense of a signalling-apparatus for a ruined snare wherein nothing can now be caught. Only the old Spiders, meditating or dozing in their green tent, are warned from afar, by telegraph, of what takes place on the web.

To save herself from keeping a close watch that would degenerate into drudgery and to remain alive to events even when resting, with her back turned on the net, the ambushed Spider always has her foot upon the telegraph-wire. Of my observations on this subject, let me relate the following, which will be sufficient for our purpose.

An Angular Epeira, with a remarkably fine belly, has spun her web between two laurustine-shrubs, covering a width of nearly a yard. The sun beats upon the snare, which is abandoned long before dawn. The Spider is in her day manor, a resort easily discovered by following the telegraph-wire. It is a vaulted chamber of dead leaves, joined together with a few bits of silk. The refuge is deep: the Spider disappears in it entirely, all but her rounded hind-quarters, which bar the entrance to her donjon.

With her front half plunged into the back of her hut, the Epeira certainly cannot see her web. Even if she had good sight, instead of being purblind, her position could not possibly allow her to keep the prey in view. Does she give up hunting during this period of bright sunlight? Not at all. Look again.

Wonderful! One of her hind-legs is stretched outside the leafy cabin; and the signalling-thread ends just at the tip of that leg. Whoso has not seen the Epeira in this attitude, with her hand, so to speak, on the telegraph-receiver, knows nothing of one of the most curious instances of animal cleverness. Let any game appear upon the scene; and the slumberer, forthwith aroused by means of the leg receiving the vibrations, hastens up. A Locust whom I myself lay on the web procures her this agreeable shock and what follows. If she is satisfied with her bag, I am still more satisfied with what I have learnt.

One word more. The web is often shaken by the wind. The different parts of the framework, tossed and teased by the eddying air-currents, cannot fail to transmit their vibration to the signalling-thread. Nevertheless, the Spider does not quit her hut and remains indifferent to the commotion prevailing in the net. Her line, therefore, is something better than a bell-rope that pulls and communicates the impulse given: it is a telephone capable, like our own, of transmitting infinitesimal waves of sound. Clutching her telephone-wire with a toe, the Spider listens with her leg; she perceives the innermost vibrations; she distinguishes between the vibration proceeding from a prisoner and the mere shaking caused by the wind.



CHAPTER 11. THE EUMENES.

A wasp-like garb of motley black and yellow; a slender and graceful figure; wings not spread out flat, when resting, but folded lengthwise in two; the abdomen a sort of chemist's retort, which swells into a gourd and is fastened to the thorax by a long neck, first distending into a pear, then shrinking to a thread; a leisurely and silent flight; lonely habits. There we have a summary sketch of the Eumenes. My part of the country possesses two species: the larger, Eumenes Amedei, Lep., measures nearly an inch in length; the other, Eumenes pomiformis, Fabr., is a reduction of the first to the scale of one-half. (I include three species promiscuously under this one name, that is to say, Eumenes pomiformis, Fabr., E. bipunctis, Sauss., and E. dubius, Sauss. As I did not distinguish between them in my first investigations, which date a very long time back, it is not possible for me to ascribe to each of them its respective nest. But their habits are the same, for which reason this confusion does not injuriously affect the order of ideas in the present chapter.—Author's Note.)

Similar in form and colouring, both possess a like talent for architecture; and this talent is expressed in a work of the highest perfection which charms the most untutored eye. Their dwelling is a masterpiece. The Eumenes follow the profession of arms, which is unfavourable to artistic effort; they stab a prey with their sting; they pillage and plunder. They are predatory Hymenoptera, victualling their grubs with caterpillars. It will be interesting to compare their habits with those of the operator on the Grey Worm. (Ammophila hirsuta, who hunts the Grey Worm, the caterpillar of Noctua segetum, the Dart or Turnip Moth.—Translator's Note.) Though the quarry—caterpillars in either case—remain the same, perhaps instinct, which is liable to vary with the species, has fresh glimpses in store for us. Besides, the edifice built by the Eumenes in itself deserves inspection.

The Hunting Wasps whose story we have described in former volumes are wonderfully well versed in the art of wielding the lancet; they astound us with their surgical methods, which they seem to have learnt from some physiologist who allows nothing to escape him; but those skilful slayers have no merit as builders of dwelling-houses. What is their home, in point of fact? An underground passage, with a cell at the end of it; a gallery, an excavation, a shapeless cave. It is miner's work, navvy's work: vigorous sometimes, artistic never. They use the pick-axe for loosening, the crowbar for shifting, the rake for extracting the materials, but never the trowel for laying. Now in the Eumenes we see real masons, who build their houses bit by bit with stone and mortar and run them up in the open, either on the firm rock or on the shaky support of a bough. Hunting alternates with architecture; the insect is a Nimrod or a Vitruvius by turns. (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the Roman architect and engineer.—Translator's Note.)

And, first of all, what sites do these builders select for their homes? Should you pass some little garden-wall, facing south, in a sun-scorched corner, look at the stones that are not covered with plaster, look at them one by one, especially the largest; examine the masses of boulders, at no great height from the ground, where the fierce rays have heated them to the temperature of a Turkish bath; and, perhaps, if you seek long enough, you will light upon the structure of Eumenes Amedei. The insect is scarce and lives apart; a meeting is an event upon which we must not count with too great confidence. It is an African species and loves the heat that ripens the carob and the date. It haunts the sunniest spots and selects rocks or firm stones as a foundation for its nest. Sometimes also, but seldom, it copies the Chalicodoma of the Walls and builds upon an ordinary pebble. (Or Mason-bee.—Translator's Note.)

Eumenes pomiformis is much more common and is comparatively indifferent to the nature of the foundation whereon she erects her cells. She builds on walls, on isolated stones, on the wood of the inner surface of half-closed shutters; or else she adopts an aerial base, the slender twig of a shrub, the withered sprig of a plant of some sort. Any form of support serves her purpose. Nor does she trouble about shelter. Less chilly than her African cousin, she does not shun the unprotected spaces exposed to every wind that blows.

When erected on a horizontal surface, where nothing interferes with it, the structure of Eumenes Amedei is a symmetrical cupola, a spherical skull-cap, with, at the top, a narrow passage just wide enough for the insect, and surmounted by a neatly funnelled neck. It suggests the round hut of the Eskimo or of the ancient Gael, with its central chimney. Two centimetres and a half (.97 inch.—Translator's Note.), more or less, represent the diameter, and two centimetres the height. (.78 inch.—Translator's Note.) When the support is a perpendicular plane, the building still retains the domed shape, but the entrance- and exit-funnel opens at the side, upwards. The floor of this apartment calls for no labour: it is supplied direct by the bare stone.

Having chosen the site, the builder erects a circular fence about three millimetres thick. (.118 inch.—Translator's Note.) The materials consist of mortar and small stones. The insect selects its stone-quarry in some well-trodden path, on some neighbouring road, at the driest, hardest spots. With its mandibles, it scrapes together a small quantity of dust and saturates it with saliva until the whole becomes a regular hydraulic mortar which soon sets and is no longer susceptible to water. The Mason-bees have shown us a similar exploitation of the beaten paths and of the road-mender's macadam. All these open-air builders, all these erectors of monuments exposed to wind and weather require an exceedingly dry stone-dust; otherwise the material, already moistened with water, would not properly absorb the liquid that is to give it cohesion; and the edifice would soon be wrecked by the rains. They possess the sense of discrimination of the plasterer, who rejects plaster injured by damp. We shall see presently how the insects that build under shelter avoid this laborious macadam-scraping and give the preference to fresh earth already reduced to a paste by its own dampness. When common lime answers our purpose, we do not trouble about Roman cement. Now Eumenes Amedei requires a first-class cement, even better than that of the Chalicodoma of the Walls, for the work, when finished, does not receive the thick covering wherewith the Mason-bee protects her cluster of cells. And therefore the cupola-builder, as often as she can, uses the highway as her stone-pit.

With the mortar, flints are needed. These are bits of gravel of an almost unvarying size—that of a peppercorn—but of a shape and kind differing greatly, according to the places worked. Some are sharp-cornered, with facets determined by chance fractures; some are round, polished by friction under water. Some are of limestone, others of silicic matter. The favourite stones, when the neighbourhood of the nest permits, are little nodules of quartz, smooth and semitransparent. These are selected with minute care. The insect weighs them, so to say, measures them with the compass of its mandibles and does not accept them until after recognizing in them the requisite qualities of size and hardness.

A circular fence, we were saying, is begun on the bare rock. Before the mortar sets, which does not take long, the mason sticks a few stones into the soft mass, as the work advances. She dabs them half-way into the cement, so as to leave them jutting out to a large extent, without penetrating to the inside, where the wall must remain smooth for the sake of the larva's comfort. If necessary, a little plaster is added, to tone down the inner protuberances. The solidly embedded stonework alternates with the pure mortarwork, of which each fresh course receives its facing of tiny encrusted pebbles. As the edifice is raised, the builder slopes the construction a little towards the centre and fashions the curve which will give the spherical shape. We employ arched centrings to support the masonry of a dome while building: the Eumenes, more daring than we, erects her cupola without any scaffolding.

A round orifice is contrived at the summit; and, on this orifice, rises a funnelled mouthpiece built of pure cement. It might be the graceful neck of some Etruscan vase. When the cell is victualled and the egg laid, this mouthpiece is closed with a cement plug; and in this plug is set a little pebble, one alone, no more: the ritual never varies. This work of rustic architecture has naught to fear from the inclemency of the weather; it does not yield to the pressure of the fingers; it resists the knife that attempts to remove it without breaking it. Its nipple shape and the bits of gravel wherewith it bristles all over the outside remind one of certain cromlechs of olden time, of certain tumuli whose domes are strewn with Cyclopean stones.

Such is the appearance of the edifice when the cell stands alone; but the Hymenopteron nearly always fixes other domes against her first, to the number of five, six, or more. This shortens the labour by allowing her to use the same partition for two adjoining rooms. The original elegant symmetry is lost and the whole now forms a cluster which, at first sight, appears to be merely a clod of dry mud, sprinkled with tiny pebbles. But let us examine the shapeless mass more closely and we shall perceive the number of chambers composing the habitation with the funnelled mouths, each quite distinct and each furnished with its gravel stopper set in the cement.

The Chalicodoma of the Walls employs the same building methods as Eumenes Amedei: in the courses of cement she fixes, on the outside, small stones of minor bulk. Her work begins by being a turret of rustic art, not without a certain prettiness; then, when the cells are placed side by side, the whole construction degenerates into a lump governed apparently by no architectural rule. Moreover, the Mason-bee covers her mass of cells with a thick layer of cement, which conceals the original rockwork edifice. The Eumenes does not resort to this general coating: her building is too strong to need it; she leaves the pebbly facings uncovered, as well as the entrances to the cells. The two sorts of nests, although constructed of similar materials, are therefore easily distinguished.

The Eumenes' cupola is the work of an artist; and the artist would be sorry to cover his masterpiece with whitewash. I crave forgiveness for a suggestion which I advance with all the reserve befitting so delicate a subject. Would it not be possible for the cromlech-builder to take a pride in her work, to look upon it with some affection and to feel gratified by this evidence of her cleverness? Might there not be an insect science of aesthetics? I seem at least to catch a glimpse, in the Eumenes, of a propensity to beautify her work. The nest must be, before all, a solid habitation, an inviolable stronghold; but, should ornament intervene without jeopardizing the power of resistance, will the worker remain indifferent to it? Who would say?

Let us set forth the facts. The orifice at the top, if left as a mere hole, would suit the purpose quite as well as an elaborate door: the insect would lose nothing in regard to facilities for coming and going and would gain by shortening the labour. Yet we find, on the contrary, the mouth of an amphora, gracefully curved, worthy of a potter's wheel. A choice cement and careful work are necessary for the confection of its slender, funnelled shaft. Why this nice finish, if the builder be wholly absorbed in the solidity of her work?

Here is another detail: among the bits of gravel employed for the outer covering of the cupola, grains of quartz predominate. They are polished and translucent; they glitter slightly and please the eye. Why are these little pebbles preferred to chips of lime-stone, when both materials are found in equal abundance around the nest?

A yet more remarkable feature: we find pretty often, encrusted on the dome, a few tiny, empty snail-shells, bleached by the sun. The species usually selected by the Eumenes is one of the smaller Helices—Helix strigata—frequent on our parched slopes. I have seen nests where this Helix took the place of pebbles almost entirely. They were like boxes made of shells, the work of a patient hand.

A comparison offers here. Certain Australian birds, notably the Bower-birds, build themselves covered walks, or playhouses, with interwoven twigs, and decorate the two entrances to the portico by strewing the threshold with anything that they can find in the shape of glittering, polished, or bright-coloured objects. Every door-sill is a cabinet of curiosities where the collector gathers smooth pebbles, variegated shells, empty snail-shells, parrot's feathers, bones that have come to look like sticks of ivory. The odds and ends mislaid by man find a home in the bird's museum, where we see pipe-stems, metal buttons, strips of cotton stuff and stone axe-heads.

The collection at either entrance to the bower is large enough to fill half a bushel. As these objects are of no use to the bird, its only motive for accumulating them must be an art-lover's hobby. Our common Magpie has similar tastes: any shiny thing that he comes upon he picks up, hides and hoards.

Well, the Eumenes, who shares this passion for bright pebbles and empty snail-shells, is the Bower-bird of the insect world; but she is a more practical collector, knows how to combine the useful and the ornamental and employs her finds in the construction of her nest, which is both a fortress and a museum. When she finds nodules of translucent quartz, she rejects everything else: the building will be all the prettier for them. When she comes across a little white shell, she hastens to beautify her dome with it; should fortune smile and empty snail-shells abound, she encrusts the whole fabric with them, until it becomes the supreme expression of her artistic taste. Is this so? Or is it not so? Who shall decide?

The nest of Eumenes pomiformis is the size of an average cherry and constructed of pure mortar, without the least outward pebblework. Its shape is exactly similar to that which we have just described. When built upon a horizontal base of sufficient extent, it is a dome with a central neck, funnelled like the mouth of an urn. But when the foundation is reduced to a mere point, as on the twig of a shrub, the nest becomes a spherical capsule, always, of course, surmounted by a neck. It is then a miniature specimen of exotic pottery, a paunchy alcarraza. Its thickens is very slight, less than that of a sheet of paper; it crushes under the least effort of the fingers. The outside is not quite even. It displays wrinkles and seams, due to the different courses of mortar, or else knotty protuberances distributed almost concentrically.

Both Hymenoptera accumulate caterpillars in their coffers, whether domes or jars. Let us give an abstract of the bill of fare. These documents, for all their dryness, possess a value; they will enable whoso cares to interest himself in the Eumenes to perceive to what extent instinct varies the diet, according to the place and season. The food is plentiful, but lacks variety. It consists of tiny caterpillars, by which I mean the grubs of small Butterflies. We learn this from the structure, for we observe in the prey selected by either Hymenopteran the usual caterpillar organism. The body is composed of twelve segments, not including the head. The first three have true legs, the next two are legless, then come two segments with prolegs, two legless segments and, lastly, a terminal segment with prolegs. It is exactly the same structure which we saw in the Ammophila's Grey Worm.

My old notes give the following description of the caterpillars found in the nest of Eumenes Amedei: "a pale green or, less often, a yellowish body, covered with short white hairs; head wider than the front segment, dead-black and also bristling with hairs. Length: 16 to 18 millimetres (.63 to .7 inch.—Translator's Note.); width: about 3 millimetres." (.12 inch.—Translator's Note.) A quarter of a century and more has elapsed since I jotted down this descriptive sketch; and to-day, at Serignan, I find in the Eumenes' larder the same game which I noticed long ago at Carpentras. Time and distance have not altered the nature of the provisions.

The number of morsels served for the meal of each larva interests us more than the quality. In the cells of Eumenes Amedei, I find sometimes five caterpillars and sometimes ten, which means a difference of a hundred per cent in the quantity of the food, for the morsels are of exactly the same size in both cases. Why this unequal supply, which gives a double portion to one larva and a single portion to another? The diners have the same appetite: what one nurseling demands a second must demand, unless we have here a different menu, according to the sexes. In the perfect stage the males are smaller than the females, are hardly half as much in weight or volume. The amount of victuals, therefore, required to bring them to their final development may be reduced by one-half. In that case, the well-stocked cells belong to females; the others, more meagrely supplied, belong to males.

But the egg is laid when the provisions are stored; and this egg has a determined sex, though the most minute examination is not able to discover the differences which will decide the hatching of a female or a male. We are therefore needs driven to this strange conclusion: the mother knows beforehand the sex of the egg which she is about to lay; and this knowledge allows her to fill the larder according to the appetite of the future grub. What a strange world, so wholly different from ours! We fall back upon a special sense to explain the Ammophila's hunting; what can we fall back upon to account for this intuition of the future? Can the theory of chances play a part in the hazy problem? If nothing is logically arranged with a foreseen object, how is this clear vision of the invisible acquired?

The capsules of Eumenes pomiformis are literally crammed with game. It is true that the morsels are very small. My notes speak of fourteen green caterpillars in one cell and sixteen in a second cell. I have no other information about the integral diet of this Wasp, whom I have neglected somewhat, preferring to study her cousin, the builder of rockwork domes. As the two sexes differ in size, although to a lesser degree than in the case of Eumenes Amedei, I am inclined to think that those two well-filled cells belonged to females and that the males' cells must have a less sumptuous table. Not having seen for myself, I am content to set down this mere suspicion.

What I have seen and often seen is the pebbly nest, with the larva inside and the provisions partly consumed. To continue the rearing at home and follow my charge's progress from day to day was a business which I could not resist; besides, as far as I was able to see, it was easily managed. I had had some practice in this foster-father's trade; my association with the Bembex, the Ammophila, the Sphex (three species of Digger-wasps.—Translator's Note.) and many others had turned me into a passable insect-rearer. I was no novice in the art of dividing an old pen-box into compartments in which I laid a bed of sand and, on this bed, the larva and her provisions delicately removed from the maternal cell. Success was almost certain at each attempt: I used to watch the larvae at their meals, I saw my nurselings grow up and spin their cocoons. Relying upon the experience thus gained, I reckoned upon success in raising my Eumenes.

The results, however, in no way answered to my expectations. All my endeavours failed; and the larva allowed itself to die a piteous death without touching its provisions.

I ascribed my reverse to this, that and the other cause: perhaps I had injured the frail grub when demolishing the fortress; a splinter of masonry had bruised it when I forced open the hard dome with my knife; a too sudden exposure to the sun had surprised it when I withdrew it from the darkness of its cell; the open air might have dried up its moisture. I did the best I could to remedy all these probable reasons of failure. I went to work with every possible caution in breaking open the home; I cast the shadow of my body over the nest, to save the grub from sunstroke; I at once transferred larva and provisions into a glass tube and placed this tube in a box which I carried in my hand, to minimize the jolting on the journey. Nothing was of avail: the larva, when taken from its dwelling, always allowed itself to pine away.

For a long time I persisted in explaining my want of success by the difficulties attending the removal. Eumenes Amedei's cell is a strong casket which cannot be forced without sustaining a shock; and the demolition of a work of this kind entails such varied accidents that we are always liable to think that the worm has been bruised by the wreckage. As for carrying home the nest intact on its support, with a view to opening it with greater care than is permitted by a rough-and-ready operation in the fields, that is out of the question: the nest nearly always stands on an immovable rock or on some big stone forming part of a wall. If I failed in my attempts at rearing, it was because the larva had suffered when I was breaking up her house. The reason seemed a good one; and I let it go at that.

In the end, another idea occurred to me and made me doubt whether my rebuffs were always due to clumsy accidents. The Eumenes' cells are crammed with game: there are ten caterpillars in the cell of Eumenes Amedei and fifteen in that of Eumenes pomiformis. These caterpillars, stabbed no doubt, but in a manner unknown to me, are not entirely motionless. The mandibles seize upon what is presented to them, the body buckles and unbuckles, the hinder half lashes out briskly when stirred with the point of a needle. At what spot is the egg laid amid that swarming mass, where thirty mandibles can make a hole in it, where a hundred and twenty pairs of legs can tear it? When the victuals consist of a single head of game, these perils do not exist; and the egg is laid on the victim not at hazard, but upon a judiciously chosen spot. Thus, for instance, Ammophila hirsuta fixes hers, by one end, cross-wise, on the Grey Worm, on the side of the first prolegged segment. The eggs hang over the caterpillar's back, away from the legs, whose proximity might be dangerous. The worm, moreover, stung in the greater number of its nerve-centres, lies on one side, motionless and incapable of bodily contortions or said an jerks of its hinder segments. If the mandibles try to snap, if the legs give a kick or two, they find nothing in front of them: the Ammophila's egg is at the opposite side. The tiny grub is thus able, as soon as it hatches, to dig into the giant's belly in full security.

How different are the conditions in the Eumenes' cell. The caterpillars are imperfectly paralysed, perhaps because they have received but a single stab; they toss about when touched with a pin; they are bound to wriggle when bitten by the larva. If the egg is laid on one of them, the first morsel will, I admit, be consumed without danger, on condition that the point of attack be wisely chosen; but there remain others which are not deprived of every means of defence. Let a movement take place in the mass; and the egg, shifted from the upper layer, will tumble into a pitfall of legs and mandibles. The least thing is enough to jeopardize its existence; and this least thing has every chance of being brought about in the disordered heap of caterpillars. The egg, a tiny cylinder, transparent as crystal, is extremely delicate: a touch withers it, the least pressure crushes it.

No, its place is not in the mass of provisions, for the caterpillars, I repeat, are not sufficiently harmless. Their paralysis is incomplete, as is proved by their contortions when I irritate them and shown, on the other hand, by a very important fact. I have sometimes taken from Eumenes Amedei's cell a few heads of game half transformed into chrysalids. It is evident that the transformation was effected in the cell itself and, therefore, after the operation which the Wasp had performed upon them. Whereof does this operation consist? I cannot say precisely, never having seen the huntress at work. The sting most certainly has played its part; but where? And how often? This is what we do not know. What we are able to declare is that the torpor is not very deep, inasmuch as the patient sometimes retains enough vitality to shed its skin and become a chrysalid. Everything thus tends to make us ask by what stratagem the egg is shielded from danger.

This stratagem I longed to discover; I would not be put off by the scarcity of nests, by the irksomeness of the searches, by the risk of sunstroke, by the time taken up, by the vain breaking open of unsuitable cells; I meant to see and I saw. Here is my method: with the point of a knife and a pair of nippers, I make a side opening, a window, beneath the dome of Eumenes Amedei and Eumenes pomiformis. I work with the greatest care, so as not to injure the recluse. Formerly I attacked the cupola from the top, now I attack it from the side. I stop when the breach is large enough to allow me to see the state of things within.

What is this state of things? I pause to give the reader time to reflect and to think out for himself a means of safety that will protect the egg and afterwards the grub in the perilous conditions which I have set forth. Seek, think and contrive, such of you as have inventive minds. Have you guessed it? Do you give it up? I may as well tell you.

The egg is not laid upon the provisions; it is hung from the top of the cupola by a thread which vies with that of a Spider's web for slenderness. The dainty cylinder quivers and swings to and fro at the least breath; it reminds me of the famous pendulum suspended from the dome of the Pantheon to prove the rotation of the earth. The victuals are heaped up underneath.

Second act of this wondrous spectacle. In order to witness it, we must open a window in cell upon cell until fortune deigns to smile upon us. The larva is hatched and already fairly large. Like the egg, it hangs perpendicularly, by the rear, from the ceiling; but the suspensory cord has gained considerably in length and consists of the original thread eked out by a sort of ribbon. The grub is at dinner: head downwards, it is digging into the limp belly of one of the caterpillars. I touch up the game that is still intact with a straw. The caterpillars grow restless. The grub forthwith retires from the fray. And how? Marvel is added to marvels: what I took for a flat cord, for a ribbon, at the lower end of the suspensory thread, is a sheath, a scabbard, a sort of ascending gallery wherein the larva crawls backwards and makes its way up. The cast shell of the egg, retaining its cylindrical form and perhaps lengthened by a special operation on the part of the new-born grub, forms this safety-channel. At the least sign of danger in the heap of caterpillars, the larva retreats into its sheath and climbs back to the ceiling, where the swarming rabble cannot reach it. When peace is restored, it slides down its case and returns to table, with its head over the viands and its rear upturned and ready to withdraw in case of need.

Third and last act. Strength has come; the larva is brawny enough not to dread the movements of the caterpillars' bodies. Besides, the caterpillars, mortified by fasting and weakened by a prolonged torpor, become more and more incapable of defence. The perils of the tender babe are succeeded by the security of the lusty stripling; and the grub, henceforth scorning its sheathed lift, lets itself drop upon the game that remains. And thus the banquet ends in normal fashion.

That is what I saw in the nests of both species of the Eumenes and that is what I showed to friends who were even more surprised than I by these ingenious tactics. The egg hanging from the ceiling, at a distance from the provisions, has naught to fear from the caterpillars, which flounder about below. The new-hatched larva, whose suspensory cord is lengthened by the sheath of the egg, reaches the game and takes a first cautious bite at it. If there be danger, it climbs back to the ceiling by retreating inside the scabbard. This explains the failure of my earlier attempts. Not knowing of the safety-thread, so slender and so easily broken, I gathered at one time the egg, at another the young larva, after my inroads at the top had caused them to fall into the middle of the live victuals. Neither of them was able to thrive when brought into direct contact with the dangerous game.

If any one of my readers, to whom I appealed just now, has thought out something better than the Eumenes' invention, I beg that he will let me know: there is a curious parallel to be drawn between the inspirations of reason and the inspirations of instinct.



CHAPTER 12. THE OSMIAE.

THEIR HABITS.

February has its sunny days, heralding spring, to which rude winter will reluctantly yield place. In snug corners, among the rocks, the great spurge of our district, the characias of the Greeks, the jusclo of the Provencals, begins to lift its drooping inflorescence and discreetly opens a few sombre flowers. Here the first midges of the year will come to slake their thirst. By the time that the tip of the stalks reaches the perpendicular, the worst of the cold weather will be over.

Another eager one, the almond-tree, risking the loss of its fruit, hastens to echo these preludes to the festival of the sun, preludes which are too often treacherous. A few days of soft skies and it becomes a glorious dome of white flowers, each twinkling with a roseate eye. The country, which still lacks green, seems dotted everywhere with white-satin pavilions. 'Twould be a callous heart indeed that could resist the magic of this awakening.

The insect nation is represented at these rites by a few of its more zealous members. There is first of all the Honey-bee, the sworn enemy of strikes, who profits by the least lull of winter to find out if some rosemary or other is not beginning to open somewhere near the hive. The droning of the busy swarms fills the flowery vault, while a snow of petals falls softly to the foot of the tree.

Together with the population of harvesters there mingles another, less numerous, of mere drinkers, whose nesting-time has not yet begun. This is the colony of the Osmiae, those exceedingly pretty solitary bees, with their copper-coloured skin and bright-red fleece. Two species have come hurrying up to take part in the joys of the almond-tree: first, the Horned Osmia, clad in black velvet on the head and breast, with red velvet on the abdomen; and, a little later, the Three-horned Osmia, whose livery must be red and red only. These are the first delegates despatched by the pollen-gleaners to ascertain the state of the season and attend the festival of the early blooms.

'Tis but a moment since they burst their cocoon, the winter abode: they have left their retreats in the crevices of the old walls; should the north wind blow and set the almond-tree shivering, they will hasten to return to them. Hail to you, O my dear Osmiae, who yearly, from the far end of the harmas, opposite snow-capped Ventoux (A mountain in the Provencal Alps, near Carpentras and Serignan 6,271 feet.—Translator's Note.), bring me the first tidings of the awakening of the insect world! I am one of your friends; let us talk about you a little.

Most of the Osmiae of my region do not themselves prepare the dwelling destined for the laying. They want ready-made lodgings, such as the old cells and old galleries of Anthophorae and Chalicodomae. If these favourite haunts are lacking, then a hiding-place in the wall, a round hole in some bit of wood, the tube of a reed, the spiral of a dead Snail under a heap of stones are adopted, according to the tastes of the several species. The retreat selected is divided into chambers by partition-walls, after which the entrance to the dwelling receives a massive seal. That is the sum-total of the building done.

For this plasterer's rather than mason's work, the Horned and the Three-horned Osmia employ soft earth. This material is a sort of dried mud, which turns to pap on the addition of a drop of water. The two Osmiae limit themselves to gathering natural soaked earth, mud in short, which they allow to dry without any special preparation on their part; and so they need deep and well-sheltered retreats, into which the rain cannot penetrate, or the work would fall to pieces.

Latreille's Osmia uses different materials for her partitions and her doors. She chews the leaves of some mucilaginous plant, some mallow perhaps, and then prepares a sort of green putty with which she builds her partitions and finally closes the entrance to the dwelling. When she settles in the spacious cells of the Masked Anthophora (Anthophora personata, Illig.), the entrance to the gallery, which is wide enough to admit a man's finger, is closed with a voluminous plug of this vegetable paste. On the earthy banks, hardened by the sun, the home is then betrayed by the gaudy colour of the lid. It is as though the authorities had closed the door and affixed to it their great seals of green wax.

So far then as their building-materials are concerned, the Osmiae whom I have been able to observe are divided into two classes: one building compartments with mud, the other with a green-tinted vegetable putty. To the latter belongs Latreille's Osmia. The first section includes the Horned Osmia and the Three-horned Osmia, both so remarkable for the horny tubercles on their faces.

The great reed of the south, Arundo donax, is often used, in the country, for making rough garden-shelters against the mistral or just for fences. These reeds, the ends of which are chopped off to make them all the same length, are planted perpendicularly in the earth. I have often explored them in the hope of finding Osmia-nests. My search has very seldom succeeded. The failure is easily explained. The partitions and the closing-plug of the Horned and of the Three-horned Osmia are made, as we have seen, of a sort of mud which water instantly reduces to pap. With the upright position of the reeds, the stopper of the opening would receive the rain and would become diluted; the ceilings of the storeys would fall in and the family would perish by drowning. Therefore the Osmia, who knew of these drawbacks before I did, refuses the reeds when they are placed perpendicularly.

The same reed is used for a second purpose. We make canisses of it, that is to say, hurdles, which, in spring, serve for the rearing of Silkworms and, in autumn, for the drying of figs. At the end of April and during May, which is the time when the Osmiae work, the canisses are indoors, in the Silkworm nurseries, where the Bee cannot take possession of them; in autumn, they are outside, exposing their layers of figs and peeled peaches to the sun; but by that time the Osmiae have long disappeared. If, however, during the spring, an old, disused hurdle is left out of doors, in a horizontal position, the Three-horned Osmia often takes possession of it and makes use of the two ends, where the reeds lie truncated and open.

There are other quarters that suit the Three-horned Osmia, who is not particular, it seems to me, and will make shift with any hiding-place, so long as it have the requisite conditions of diameter, solidity, sanitation and kindly darkness. The most original dwellings that I know her to occupy are disused Snail-shells, especially the house of the Common Snail (Helix aspersa). Let us go to the slope of the hills thick with olive-trees and inspect the little supporting-walls which are built of dry stones and face the south. In the crevices of this insecure masonry we shall reap a harvest of old Snail-shells, plugged with earth right up to the orifice. The family of the Three-horned Osmia is settled in the spiral of those shells, which is subdivided into chambers by mud partitions.

The Three-pronged Osmia (O. Tridentata, Duf. and Per.) alone creates a home of her own, digging herself a channel with her mandibles in dry bramble and sometimes in danewort.

The Osmia loves mystery. She wants a dark retreat, hidden from the eye. I would like, nevertheless, to watch her in the privacy of her home and to witness her work with the same facility as if she were nest-building in the open air. Perhaps there are some interesting characteristics to be picked up in the depths of her retreats. It remains to be seen whether my wish can be realized.

When studying the insect's mental capacity, especially its very retentive memory for places, I was led to ask myself whether it would not be possible to make a suitably-chosen Bee build in any place that I wished, even in my study. And I wanted, for an experiment of this sort, not an individual but a numerous colony. My preference lent towards the Three-horned Osmia, who is very plentiful in my neighbourhood, where, together with Latreille's Osmia, she frequents in particular the monstrous nests of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I therefore thought out a scheme for making the Three-horned Osmia accept my study as her settlement and build her nest in glass tubes, through which I could easily watch the progress. To these crystal galleries, which might well inspire a certain distrust, were to be added more natural retreats: reeds of every length and thickness and disused Chalicodoma-nests taken from among the biggest and the smallest. A scheme like this sounds mad. I admit it, while mentioning that perhaps none ever succeeded so well with me. We shall see as much presently.

My method is extremely simple. All I ask is that the birth of my insects, that is to say, their first seeing the light, their emerging from the cocoon, should take place on the spot where I propose to make them settle. Here there must be retreats of no matter what nature, but of a shape similar to that in which the Osmia delights. The first impressions of sight, which are the most long-lived of any, shall bring back my insects to the place of their birth. And not only will the Osmiae return, through the always open windows, but they will also nidify on the natal spot, if they find something like the necessary conditions.

And so, all through the winter, I collect Osmia-cocoons picked up in the nests of the Mason-bee of the Sheds; I go to Carpentras to glean a more plentiful supply in the nests of the Anthophora. I spread out my stock in a large open box on a table which receives a bright diffused light but not the direct rays of the sun. The table stands between two windows facing south and overlooking the garden. When the moment of hatching comes, those two windows will always remain open to give the swarm entire liberty to go in and out as it pleases. The glass tubes and reed-stumps are laid here and there, in fine disorder, close to the heaps of cocoons and all in a horizontal position, for the Osmia will have nothing to do with upright reeds. Although such a precaution is not indispensable, I take care to place some cocoons in each cylinder. The hatching of some of the Osmiae will therefore take place under cover of the galleries destined to be the building-yard later; and the site will be all the more deeply impressed on their memory. When I have made these comprehensive arrangements, there is nothing more to be done; and I wait patiently for the building-season to open.

My Osmiae leave their cocoons in the second half of April. Under the immediate rays of the sun, in well-sheltered nooks, the hatching would occur a month earlier, as we can see from the mixed population of the snowy almond-tree. The constant shade in my study has delayed the awakening, without, however, making any change in the nesting-period, which synchronizes with the flowering of the thyme. We now have, around my working-table, my books, my jars and my various appliances, a buzzing crowd that goes in and out of the windows at every moment. I enjoin the household henceforth not to touch a thing in the insects' laboratory, to do no more sweeping, no more dusting. They might disturb a swarm and make it think that my hospitality was not to be trusted. During four or five weeks I witness the work of a number of Osmiae which is much too large to allow my watching their individual operations. I content myself with a few, whom I mark with different-coloured spots to distinguish them; and I take no notice of the others, whose finished work will have my attention later.

The first to appear are the males. If the sun is bright, they flutter around the heap of tubes as if to take careful note of the locality; blows are exchanged and the rival swains indulge in mild skirmishing on the floor, then shake the dust off their wings. They fly assiduously from tube to tube, placing their heads in the orifices to see if some female will at last make up her mind to emerge.

One does, in point of fact. She is covered with dust and has the disordered toilet that is inseparable from the hard work of the deliverance. A lover has seen her, so has a second, likewise a third. All crowd round her. The lady responds to their advances by clashing her mandibles, which open and shut rapidly, several times in succession. The suitors forthwith fall back; and they also, no doubt to keep up their dignity, execute savage mandibular grimaces. Then the beauty retires into the arbour and her wooers resume their places on the threshold. A fresh appearance of the female, who repeats the play with her jaws; a fresh retreat of the males, who do the best they can to flourish their own pincers. The Osmiae have a strange way of declaring their passion: with that fearsome gnashing of their mandibles, the lovers look as though they meant to devour each other. It suggests the thumps affected by our yokels in their moments of gallantry.

The ingenuous idyll is soon over. The females, who grow more numerous from day to day, inspect the premises; they buzz outside the glass galleries and the reed dwellings; they go in, stay for a while, come out, go in again and then fly away briskly into the garden. They return, first one, then another. They halt outside, in the sun, or on the shutters fastened back against the wall; they hover in the window-recess, come inside, go to the reeds and give a glance at them, only to set off again and to return soon after. Thus do they learn to know their home, thus do they fix their birthplace in their memory. The village of our childhood is always a cherished spot, never to be effaced from our recollection. The Osmia's life endures for a month; and she acquires a lasting remembrance of her hamlet in a couple of days. 'Twas there that she was born; 'twas there that she loved; 'tis there that she will return. Dulces reminiscitur Argos.

(Now falling by another's wound, his eyes He casts to heaven, on Argos thinks and dies. —"Aeneid" Book 10, Dryden's translation.)

At last each has made her choice. The work of construction begins; and my expectations are fulfilled far beyond my wishes. The Osmiae build nests in all the retreats which I have placed at their disposal. And now, O my Osmiae, I leave you a free field!

The work begins with a thorough spring-cleaning of the home. Remnants of cocoons, dirt consisting of spoilt honey, bits of plaster from broken partitions, remains of dried Mollusc at the bottom of a shell: these and much other insanitary refuse must first of all disappear. Violently the Osmia tugs at the offending object and tears it out; and then off she goes in a desperate hurry, to dispose of it far away from the study. They are all alike, these ardent sweepers: in their excessive zeal, they fear lest they should block up the speck of dust which they might drop in front of the new house. The glass tubes, which I myself have rinsed under the tap, are not exempt from a scrupulous cleaning. The Osmia dusts them, brushes them thoroughly with her tarsi and then sweeps them out backwards. What does she pick up? Not a thing. It makes no difference: as a conscientious housewife, she gives the place a touch of the broom nevertheless.

Now for the provisions and the partition-walls. Here the order of the work changes according to the diameter of the cylinder. My glass tubes vary greatly in dimensions. The largest have an inner width of a dozen millimetres (Nearly half an inch.—Translator's Note.); the narrowest measure six or seven. (About a quarter of an inch.—Translator's Note.) In the latter, if the bottom suit her, the Osmia sets to work bringing pollen and honey. If the bottom do not suit her, if the sorghum-pith plug with which I have closed the rear-end of the tube be too irregular and badly-joined, the Bee coats it with a little mortar. When this small repair is made, the harvesting begins.

In the wider tubes, the work proceeds quite differently. At the moment when the Osmia disgorges her honey and especially at the moment when, with her hind-tarsi, she rubs the pollen-dust from her ventral brush, she needs a narrow aperture, just big enough to allow of her passage. I imagine that in a straitened gallery the rubbing of her whole body against the sides gives the harvester a support for her brushing-work. In a spacious cylinder this support fails her; and the Osmia starts with creating one for herself, which she does by narrowing the channel. Whether it be to facilitate the storing of the victuals or for any other reason, the fact remains that the Osmia housed in a wide tube begins with the partitioning.

Her division is made by a dab of clay placed at right angles to the axis of the cylinder, at a distance from the bottom determined by the ordinary length of a cell. The wad is not a complete round; it is more crescent-shaped, leaving a circular space between it and one side of the tube. Fresh layers are swiftly added to the dab of clay; and soon the tube is divided by a partition which has a circular opening at the side of it, a sort of dog-hole through which the Osmia will proceed to knead the Bee-bread. When the victualling is finished and the egg laid upon the heap, the whole is closed and the filled-up partition becomes the bottom of the next cell. Then the same method is repeated, that is to say, in front of the just completed ceiling a second partition is built, again with a side-passage, which is stouter, owing to its distance from the centre, and better able to withstand the numerous comings and goings of the housewife than a central orifice, deprived of the direct support of the wall, could hope to be. When this partition is ready, the provisioning of the second cell is effected; and so on until the wide cylinder is completely stocked.

The building of this preliminary party-wall, with a narrow, round dog-hole, for a chamber to which the victuals will not be brought until later is not restricted to the Three-horned Osmia; it is also frequently found in the case of the Horned Osmia and of Latreille's Osmia. Nothing could be prettier than the work of the last-named, who goes to the plants for her material and fashions a delicate sheet in which she cuts a graceful arch. The Chinaman partitions his house with paper screens; Latreille's Osmia divides hers with disks of thin green cardboard perforated with a serving-hatch which remains until the room is completely furnished. When we have no glass houses at our disposal, we can see these little architectural refinements in the reeds of the hurdles, if we open them at the right season.

By splitting the bramble-stumps in the course of July, we perceive also that the Three-pronged Osmia notwithstanding her narrow gallery, follows the same practice as Latreille's Osmia, with a difference. She does not build a party-wall, which the diameter of the cylinder would not permit; she confines herself to putting up a frail circular pad of green putty, as though to limit, before any attempt at harvesting, the space to be occupied by the Bee-bread, whose depth could not be calculated afterwards if the insect did not first mark out its confines.

If, in order to see the Osmia's nest as a whole, we split a reed lengthwise, taking care not to disturb its contents; or, better still, if we select for examination the string of cells built in a glass tube, we are forthwith struck by one detail, namely, the uneven distances between the partitions, which are placed almost at right angles to the axis of the cylinder. It is these distances which fix the size of the chambers, which, with a similar base, have different heights and consequently unequal holding-capacities. The bottom partitions, the oldest, are farther apart; those of the front part, near the orifice, are closer together. Moreover, the provisions are plentiful in the loftier cells, whereas they are niggardly and reduced to one-half or even one-third in the cells of lesser height. Let me say at once that the large cells are destined for the females and the small ones for the males.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE SEXES.

Does the insect which stores up provisions proportionate to the needs of the egg which it is about to lay know beforehand the sex of that egg? Or is the truth even more paradoxical? What we have to do is to turn this suspicion into a certainty demonstrated by experiment. And first let us find out how the sexes are arranged.

It is not possible to ascertain the chronological order of a laying, except by going to suitably-chosen species. Fortunately there are a few species in which we do not find this difficulty: these are the Bees who keep to one gallery and build their cells in storeys. Among the number are the different inhabitants of the bramble-stumps, notably the Three-pronged Osmiae, who form an excellent subject for observation, partly because they are of imposing size—bigger than any other bramble-dwellers in my neighbourhood—partly because they are so plentiful.

Let us briefly recall the Osmia's habits. Amid the tangle of a hedge, a bramble-stalk is selected, still standing, but a mere withered stump. In this the insect digs a more or less deep tunnel, an easy piece of work owing to the abundance of soft pith. Provisions are heaped up right at the bottom of the tunnel and an egg is laid on the surface of the food: that is the first-born of the family. At a height of some twelve millimetres (About half an inch.—Translator's Note.), a partition is fixed. This gives a second storey, which in its turn receives provisions and an egg, the second in order of primogeniture. And so it goes on, storey by storey, until the cylinder is full. Then the thick plug of the same green material of which the partitions are formed closes the home and keeps out marauders.

In this common cradle, the chronological order of births is perfectly clear. The first-born of the family is at the bottom of the series; the last-born is at the top, near the closed door. The others follow from bottom to top in the same order in which they followed in point of time. The laying is numbered automatically; each cocoon tells us its respective age by the place which it occupies.

A number of eggs bordering on fifteen represents the entire family of an Osmia, and my observations enable me to state that the distribution of the sexes is not governed by any rule. All that I can say in general is that the complete series begins with females and nearly always ends with males. The incomplete series—those which the insect has laid in various places—can teach us nothing in this respect, for they are only fragments starting we know not whence; and it is impossible to tell whether they should be ascribed to the beginning, to the end, or to an intermediate period of the laying. To sum up: in the laying of the Three-pronged Osmia, no order governs the succession of the sexes; only, the series has a marked tendency to begin with females and to finish with males.

The mother occupies herself at the start with the stronger sex, the more necessary, the better-gifted, the female sex, to which she devotes the first flush of her laying and the fullness of her vigour; later, when she is perhaps already at the end of her strength, she bestows what remains of her maternal solicitude upon the weaker sex, the less-gifted, almost negligible male sex. There are, however, other species where this law becomes absolute, constant and regular.

In order to go more deeply into this curious question I installed some hives of a new kind on the sunniest walls of my enclosure. They consisted of stumps of the great reed of the south, open at one end, closed at the other by the natural knot and gathered into a sort of enormous pan-pipe, such as Polyphemus might have employed. The invitation was accepted: Osmiae came in fairly large numbers, to benefit by the queer installation.

Three Osmiae especially (O. Tricornis, Latr., O. cornuta, Latr., O. Latreillii, Spin.) gave me splendid results, with reed-stumps arranged either against the wall of my garden, as I have just said, or near their customary abode, the huge nests of the Mason-bee of the Sheds. One of them, the Three-horned Osmia, did better still: as I have described, she built her nests in my study, as plentifully as I could wish.

We will consult this last, who has furnished me with documents beyond my fondest hopes, and begin by asking her of how many eggs her average laying consists. Of the whole heap of colonized tubes in my study, or else out of doors, in the hurdle-reeds and the pan-pipe appliances, the best-filled contains fifteen cells, with a free space above the series, a space showing that the laying is ended, for, if the mother had any more eggs available, she would have lodged them in the room which she leaves unoccupied. This string of fifteen appears to be rare; it was the only one that I found. My attempts at indoor rearing, pursued during two years with glass tubes or reeds, taught me that the Three-horned Osmia is not much addicted to long series. As though to decrease the difficulties of the coming deliverance, she prefers short galleries, in which only a part of the laying is stacked. We must then follow the same mother in her migration from one dwelling to the next if we would obtain a complete census of her family. A spot of colour, dropped on the Bee's thorax with a paint-brush while she is absorbed in closing up the mouth of the tunnel, enables us to recognize the Osmia in her various homes.

In this way, the swarm that resided in my study furnished me, in the first year, with an average of twelve cells. Next year, the summer appeared to be more favourable and the average became rather higher, reaching fifteen. The most numerous laying performed under my eyes, not in a tube, but in a succession of Snail-shells, reached the figure of twenty-six. On the other hand, layings of between eight and ten are not uncommon. Lastly, taking all my records together, the result is that the family of the Osmia fluctuates roundabout fifteen in number.

I have already spoken of the great differences in size apparent in the cells of one and the same series. The partitions, at first widely spaced, draw gradually nearer to one another as they come closer to the aperture, which implies roomy cells at the back and narrow cells in front. The contents of these compartments are no less uneven between one portion and another of the string. Without any exception known to me, the large cells, those with which the series starts, have more abundant provisions than the straitened cells with which the series ends. The heap of honey and pollen in the first is twice or even thrice as large as that in the second. In the last cells, the most recent in date, the victuals are but a pinch of pollen, so niggardly in amount that we wonder what will become of the larva with that meagre ration.