Those settled in their own demesne, those who guard the honey-factory wherein their daughters, the heiresses of the maternal establishment, are at work, display wonderful vigilance. The more I see of them, the more I admire them. In the cool hours of the early morning, when the pollen-flour is not sufficiently ripened by the sun and while the harvesters are still indoors, I see them at their posts, at the top of the gallery. Here, motionless, their heads flush with the earth, they bar the door to all invaders. If I look at them closely, they retreat a little and, in the shadow, await the indiscreet observer's departure.

I return when the harvesting is in full swing, between eight o'clock and twelve. There is now, as the Halicti go in or out, a succession of prompt withdrawals to open the door and of ascents to close it. The portress is in the full exercise of her functions.

In the afternoon, the heat is too great and the workers do not go to the fields. Retiring to the bottom of the house, they varnish the new cells, they make the round loaf that is to receive the egg. The grandmother is still upstairs, stopping the door with her bald head. For her, there is no siesta during the stifling hours: the safety of the household requires her to forgo it.

I come back again at nightfall, or even later. By the light of a lantern, I again behold the overseer, as zealous and assiduous as in the day-time. The others are resting, but not she, for fear, apparently, of nocturnal dangers known to herself alone. Does she nevertheless end by descending to the quiet of the floor below? It seems probable, so essential must rest be, after the fatigue of such a vigil!

It is evident that, guarded in this manner, the burrow is exempt from calamities similar to those which, too often, depopulate it in May. Let the Gnat come now, if she dare, to steal the Halictus' loaves! Let her lie in wait as long as she will! Neither her audacity nor her slyness will make her escape the lynx eyes of the sentinel, who will put her to flight with a threatening gesture or, if she persist, crush her with her nippers. She will not come; and we know the reason: until spring returns, she is underground in the pupa state.

But, in her absence, there is no lack, among the Fly rabble, of other batteners on the toil of their fellow insects. Whatever the job, whatever the plunder, you will find parasites there. And yet, for all my daily visits, I never catch one of these in the neighbourhood of the summer burrows. How cleverly the rascals ply their trade! How well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Halictus' door! There is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no Fly puts in an appearance and the tribulations of last spring are not repeated.

The grandmother who, dispensed by age from maternal bothers, mounts guard at the entrance of the home and watches over the safety of the family, tells us that in the genesis of the instincts sudden births occur; she shows us the existence of a spontaneous aptitude which nothing, either in her own past conduct or in the actions of her daughters, could have led us to suspect. Timorous in her prime, in the month of May, when she lived alone in the burrow of her making, she has become gifted, in her decline, with a superb contempt of danger and dares in her impotence what she never dared do in her strength.

Formerly, when her tyrant, the Gnat, entered the house in her presence, or, more often, stood face to face with her at the entrance, the silly Bee did not stir, did not even threaten the red-eyed bandit, the dwarf whose doom she could so easily have sealed. Was it terror on her part? No, for she attended to her duties with her usual punctiliousness; no, for the strong do not allow themselves to be thus paralysed by the weak. It was ignorance of the danger, it was sheer fecklessness.

And behold, to-day, the ignoramus of three months ago knows the peril, knows it well, without serving any apprenticeship. Every stranger who appears is kept at a distance, without distinction of size or race. If the threatening gesture be not enough, the keeper sallies forth and flings herself upon the persistent one. Cowardice has developed into courage.

How has this change been brought about? I should like to picture the Halictus gaining wisdom from the misfortunes of the spring and capable thenceforth of looking out for danger; I would gladly credit her with having learnt in the stern school of experience the advantages of a patrol. I must give up the idea. If, by dint of gradual little acts of progress, the Bee has achieved the glorious invention of a janitress, how comes it that the fear of thieves is intermittent? It is true that, being by herself in May, she cannot stand permanently at her door: the business of the house takes precedence of everything else. But she ought, at any rate as soon as her offspring are victimized, to know the parasite and give chase when, at every moment, she finds her almost under her feet and even in her house. Yet she pays no attention to her.

The bitter experience of her ancestors, therefore, has bequeathed nothing to her of a nature to alter her placid character; nor have her own tribulations aught to do with the sudden awakening of her vigilance in July. Like ourselves, animals have their joys and their sorrows. They eagerly make the most of the former; they fret but little about the latter, which, when all is said, is the best way of achieving a purely animal enjoyment of life. To mitigate these troubles and protect the progeny there is the inspiration of instinct, which is able without the counsels of experience to give the Halicti a portress.

When the victualling is finished, when the Halicti no longer sally forth on harvesting intent nor return all befloured with their spoils, the old Bee is still at her post, vigilant as ever. The final preparations for the brood are made below; the cells are closed. The door will be kept until everything is finished. Then grandmother and mothers leave the house. Exhausted by the performance of their duty, they go, somewhere or other, to die.

In September appears the second generation, comprising both males and females. I find both sexes wassailing on the flowers, especially the Compositae, the centauries and thistles. They are not harvesting now: they are refreshing themselves, holding high holiday, teasing one another. It is the wedding-time. Yet another fortnight and the males will disappear, henceforth useless. The part of the idlers is played. Only the industrious ones remain, the impregnated females, who go through the winter and set to work in April.

I do not know their exact haunt during the inclement season. I expected them to return to their native burrow, an excellent dwelling for the winter, one would think. Excavations made in January showed me my mistake. The old homes are empty, are falling to pieces owing to the prolonged effect of the rains. The Zebra Halictus has something better than these muddy hovels: she has snug corners in the stone-heaps, hiding-places in the sunny walls and many other convenient habitations. And so the natives of a village become scattered far and wide.

In April, the scattered ones reassemble from all directions. On the well-flattened garden-paths a choice is made of the site for their common labours. Operations soon begin. Close to the first who bores her shaft there is soon a second one busy with hers; a third arrives, followed by another and others yet, until the little mounds often touch one another, while at times they number as many as fifty on a surface of less than a square yard.

One would be inclined, at first sight, to say that these groups are accounted for by the insect's recollection of its birthplace, by the fact that the villagers, after dispersing during the winter, return to their hamlet. But it is not thus that things happen: the Halictus scorns to-day the place that once suited her. I never see her occupy the same patch of ground for two years in succession. Each spring she needs new quarters. And there are plenty of them.

Can this mustering of the Halicti be due to a wish to resume the old intercourse with their friends and relations? Do the natives of the same burrow, of the same hamlet, recognize one another? Are they inclined to do their work among themselves rather than in the company of strangers? There is nothing to prove it, nor is there anything to disprove it. Either for this reason or for others, the Halictus likes to keep with her neighbours.

This propensity is pretty frequent among peace-lovers, who, needing little nourishment, have no cause to fear competition. The others, the big eaters, take possession of estates, of hunting-grounds from which their fellows are excluded. Ask a Wolf his opinion of a brother Wolf poaching on his preserves. Man himself, the chief of consumers, makes for himself frontiers armed with artillery; he sets up posts at the foot of which one says to the other:

'Here's my side, there's yours. That's enough: now we'll pepper each other.'

And the rattle of the latest explosives ends the colloquy.

Happy are the peace-lovers. What do they gain by their mustering? With them it is not a defensive system, a concerted effort to ward off the common foe. The Halictus does not care about her neighbour's affairs. She does not visit another's burrow; she does not allow others to visit hers. She has her tribulations, which she endures alone; she is indifferent to the tribulations of her kind. She stands aloof from the strife of her fellows. Let each mind her own business and leave things at that.

But company has its attractions. He lives twice who watches the life of others. Individual activity gains by the sight of the general activity; the animation of each one derives fresh warmth from the fire of the universal animation. To see one's neighbours at work stimulates one's rivalry. And work is the great delight, the real satisfaction that gives some value to life. The Halictus knows this well and assembles in her numbers that she may work all the better.

Sometimes she assembles in such multitudes and over such extents of ground as to suggest our own colossal swarms. Babylon and Memphis, Rome and Carthage, London and Paris, those frantic hives, occur to our mind if we can manage to forget comparative dimensions and see a Cyclopean pile in a pinch of earth.

It was in February. The almond-tree was in blossom. A sudden rush of sap had given the tree new life; its boughs, all black and desolate, seemingly dead, were becoming a glorious dome of snowy satin. I have always loved this magic of the awakening spring, this smile of the first flowers against the gloomy bareness of the bark.

And so I was walking across the fields, gazing at the almond-trees' carnival. Others were before me. An Osmia in a black velvet bodice and a red woollen skirt, the Horned Osmia, was visiting the flowers, dipping into each pink eye in search of a honeyed tear. A very small and very modestly-dressed Halictus, much busier and in far greater numbers, was flitting silently from blossom to blossom. Official science calls her Halictus malachurus, K. The pretty little Bee's godfather strikes me as ill-inspired. What has malachurus, calling attention to the softness of the rump, to do in this connection? The name of Early Halictus would better describe the almond-tree's little visitor.

None of the melliferous clan, in my neighbourhood at least, is stirring as early as she is. She digs her burrows in February, an inclement month, subject to sudden returns of frost. When none as yet, even among her near kinswomen, dares to sally forth from winter-quarters, she pluckily goes to work, shine the sun ever so little. Like the Zebra Halictus, she has two generations a year, one in spring and one in summer; like her, too, she settles by preference in the hard ruts of the country roads.

Her mole-hills, those humble mounds any two of which would go easily into a Hen's egg, rise innumerous in my path, the path by the almond-trees which is the happy hunting-ground of my curiosity to-day. This path is a ribbon of road three paces wide, worn into ruts by the Mule's hoofs and the wheels of the farm-carts. A coppice of holm-oaks shelters it from the north wind. In this Eden with its well-caked soil, its warmth and quiet, the little Halictus has multiplied her mole-hills to such a degree that I cannot take a step without crushing some of them. The accident is not serious: the miner, safe underground, will be able to scramble up the crumbling sides of the mine and repair the threshold of the trampled home.

I make a point of measuring the density of the population. I count from forty to sixty mole-hills on a surface of one square yard. The encampment is three paces wide and stretches over nearly three-quarters of a mile. How many Halicti are there in this Babylon? I do not venture to make the calculation.

Speaking of the Zebra Halictus, I used the words hamlet, village, township; and the expressions were appropriate. Here the term city hardly meets the case. And what reason can we allege for these innumerable clusters? I can see but one: the charm of living together, which is the origin of society. Like mingles with like, without the rendering of any mutual service; and this is enough to summon the Early Halictus to the same way-side, even as the Herring and the Sardine assemble in the same waters.



CHAPTER 14. THE HALICTI: PARTHENOGENESIS.

The Halictus opens up another question, connected with one of life's obscurest problems. Let us go back five-and-twenty years. I am living at Orange. My house stands alone among the fields. On the other side of the wall enclosing our yard, which faces due south, is a narrow path overgrown with couch-grass. The sun beats full upon it; and the glare reflected from the whitewash of the wall turns it into a little tropical corner, shut off from the rude gusts of the north-west wind.

Here the Cats come to take their afternoon nap, with their eyes half-closed; here the children come, with Bull, the House-dog; here also come the haymakers, at the hottest time of the day, to sit and take their meal and whet their scythes in the shade of the plane-tree; here the women pass up and down with their rakes, after the hay-harvest, to glean what they can on the niggardly carpet of the shorn meadow. It is therefore a very much frequented footpath, were it only because of the coming and going of our household: a thoroughfare ill-suited, one would think, to the peaceful operations of a Bee; and nevertheless it is such a very warm and sheltered spot and the soil is so favourable that every year I see the Cylindrical Halictus (H. cylindricus, FAB.) hand down the site from one generation to the next. It is true that the very matutinal, even partly nocturnal character of the work makes the insect suffer less inconvenience from the traffic.

The burrows cover an extent of some ten square yards, and their mounds, which often come near enough to touch, average a distance of four inches at the most from one another. Their number is therefore something like a thousand. The ground just here is very rough, consisting of stones and dust mixed with a little mould and held together by the closely interwoven roots of the couch-grass. But, owing to its nature, it is thoroughly well drained, a condition always in request among Bees and Wasps that have underground cells.

Let us forget for a moment what the Zebra Halictus and the Early Halictus have taught us. At the risk of repeating myself a little, I will relate what I observed during my first investigations. The Cylindrical Halictus works in May. Except among the social species, such as Common Wasps, Bumble-bees, Ants and Hive-bees, it is the rule for each insect that victuals its nests either with honey or game to work by itself at constructing the home of its grubs. Among insects of the same species there is often neighbourship; but their labours are individual and not the result of co-operation. For instance, the Cricket-hunters, the Yellow-winged Sphex, settle in gangs at the foot of a sandstone cliff, but each digs her own burrow and would not suffer a neighbour to come and help in piercing the home.

In the case of the Anthophorae, an innumerable swarm takes possession of a sun-scorched crag, each Bee digging her own gallery and jealously excluding any of her fellows who might venture to come to the entrance of her hole. The Three-pronged Osmia, when boring the bramble-stalk tunnel in which her cells are to be stacked, gives a warm reception to any Osmia that dares set foot upon her property.

Let one of the Odyneri who make their homes in a road-side bank mistake the door and enter her neighbour's house: she would have a bad time of it! Let a Megachile, returning with her leafy disk in her legs, go into the wrong basement: she would be very soon dislodged! So with the others: each has her own home, which none of the others has the right to enter. This is the rule, even among Bees and Wasps established in a populous colony on a common site. Close neighbourhood implies no sort of intimate relationship.

Great therefore is my surprise as I watch the Cylindrical Halictus' operations. She forms no society, in the entomological sense of the word: there is no common family; and the general interest does not engross the attention of the individual. Each mother occupies herself only with her own eggs, builds cells and gathers honey only for her own larvae, without concerning herself in any way with the upbringing of the others' grubs. All that they have in common is the entrance-door and the goods-passage, which ramifies in the ground and leads to different groups of cells, each the property of one mother. Even so, in the blocks of flats in our large towns, one door, one hall and one staircase lead to different floors or different portions of a floor where each family retains its isolation and its independence.

This common right of way is extremely easy to perceive at the time for victualling the nests. Let us direct our attention for a while to the same entrance-aperture, opening at the top of a little mound of earth freshly thrown up, like that accumulated by the Ants during their works. Sooner or later we shall see the Halicti arrive with their load of pollen, gathered on the Cichoriaceae of the neighbourhood.

Usually, they come up one by one; but it is not rare to see three, four or even more appearing at the same time at the mouth of one burrow. They perch on the top of the mound and, without hurrying in front of one another, with no sign of jealousy, they dive down the passage, each in her turn. We need but watch their peaceful waiting, their tranquil dives, to recognize that this indeed is a common passage to which each has as much right as another.

When the soil is exploited for the first time and the shaft sunk slowly from the outside to the inside, do several Cylindrical Halicti, one relieving the other, take part in the work by which they will afterwards profit equally? I do not believe it for a moment. As the Zebra Halictus and the Early Halictus told me later, each miner goes to work alone and makes herself a gallery which will be her exclusive property. The common use of the passage comes presently, when the site, tested by experience, is handed down from one generation to another.

A first group of cells is established, we will suppose, at the bottom of a pit dug in virgin soil. The whole thing, cells and pit, is the work of one insect. When the moment comes to leave the underground dwelling, the Bees emerging from this nest will find before them an open road, or one at most obstructed by crumbly matter, which offers less resistance than the neighbouring soil, as yet untouched. The exit-way will therefore be the primitive way, contrived by the mother during the construction of the nest. All enter upon it without any hesitation, for the cells open straight on it. All, coming and going from the cells to the bottom of the shaft and from the shaft to the cells, will take part in the clearing, under the stimulus of the approaching deliverance.

It is quite unnecessary here to presume among these underground prisoners a concerted effort to liberate themselves more easily by working in common: each is thinking only of herself and invariably returns, after resting, to toil at the inevitable path, the path of least resistance, in short the passage once dug by the mother and now more or less blocked up.

Among the Cylindrical Halicti, any one who wishes emerges from her cell at her own hour, without waiting for the emergence of the others, because the cells, grouped in small stacks, have each their special outlet opening into the common gallery. The result of this arrangement is that all the inhabitants of one burrow are able to assist, each doing her share, in the clearing of the exit-shaft. When she feels fatigued, the worker retires to her undamaged cell and another succeeds her, impatient to get out rather than to help the first. At last the way is clear and the Halicti emerge. They disperse over the flowers around as long as the sun is hot; when the air cools, they go back to the burrows to spend the night there.

A few days pass and already the cares of egg-laying are at hand. The galleries have never been abandoned. The Bees have come to take refuge there on rainy or very windy days; most, if not all, have returned every evening at sunset, each doubtless making for her own cell, which is still intact and which is carefully impressed upon her memory. In a word, the Cylindrical Halictus does not lead a wandering life; she has a fixed residence.

A necessary consequence results from these settled habits: for the purpose of her laying, the Bee will adopt the identical burrow in which she was born. The entrance-gallery is ready therefore. Should it need to be carried deeper, to be pushed in new directions, the builder has but to extend it at will. The old cells even can serve again, if slightly restored.

Thus resuming possession of the native burrow in view of her offspring, the Bee, notwithstanding her instincts as a solitary worker, achieves an attempt at social life, because there is one entrance-door and one passage for the use of all the mothers returning to the original domicile. There is thus a semblance of collaboration without any real co-operation for the common weal. Everything is reduced to a family inheritance shared equally among the heirs.

The number of these coheirs must soon be limited, for a too tumultuous traffic in the corridor would delay the work. Then fresh passages are opened inwards, often communicating with depths already excavated, so that the ground at last is perforated in every direction with an inextricable maze of winding tunnels.

The digging of the cells and the piercing of new galleries take place especially at night. A cone of fresh earth on top of the burrow bears evidence every morning to the overnight activity. It also shows by its volume that several navvies have taken part in the work, for it would be impossible for a single Halictus to extract from the ground, convey to the surface and heap up so large a stack of rubbish in so short a time.

At sunrise, when the fields around are still wet with dew, the Cylindrical Halictus leaves her underground passages and starts on her foraging. This is done without animation, perhaps because of the morning coolness. There is no joyous excitement, no humming above the burrows. The Bees come back again, flying low, silently and heavily, their hind-legs yellow with pollen; they alight on the earth-cone and at once dive down the vertical chimney. Others come up the pipe and go off to their harvesting.

This journeying to and fro for provisions continues until eight or nine in the morning. Then the heat begins to grow intense and is reflected by the wall; then also the path is once more frequented. People pass at every moment, coming out of the house or elsewhence. The soil is so much trodden under foot that the little mounds of refuse surrounding each burrow soon disappear and the site loses every sign of underground habitation.

All day long, the Halicti remain indoors. Withdrawing to the bottom of the galleries, they occupy themselves probably in making and polishing the cells. Next morning, new cones of rubbish appear, the result of the night's work, and the pollen-harvest is resumed for a few hours; then everything ceases again. And so the work goes on, suspended by day, renewed at night and in the morning hours, until completely finished.

The passages of the Cylindrical Halictus descend to a depth of some eight inches and branch into secondary corridors, each giving access to a set of cells. These number six or eight to each set and are ranged side by side, parallel with their main axis, which is almost horizontal. They are oval at the base and contracted at the neck. Their length is nearly twenty millimetres (.78 inch.—Translator's Note.) and their greatest width eight. (.312 inch.—Translator's Note.) They do not consist simply of a cavity in the ground; on the contrary, they have their own walls, so that the group can be taken out in one piece, with a little precaution, and removed neatly from the earth in which it is contained.

The walls are formed of fairly delicate materials, which must have been chosen in the coarse surrounding mass and kneaded with saliva. The inside is carefully polished and upholstered with a thin waterproof film. We will cut short these details concerning the cells, which the Zebra Halictus has already shown us in greater perfection, leave the home to itself and come to the most striking feature in the life-history of the Halicti.

The Cylindrical Halictus is at work in the first days of May. It is a rule among the Hymenoptera for the males never to take part in the fatiguing work of nest-building. To construct cells and to amass victuals are occupations entirely foreign to their nature. This rule seems to have no exceptions; and the Halicti conform to it like the rest. It is therefore only to be expected that we should see no males shooting the underground rubbish outside the galleries. That is not their business.

But what does astonish us, when our attention is directed to it, is the total absence of any males in the vicinity of the burrows. Although it is the rule that the males should be idle, it is also the rule for these idlers to keep near the galleries in course of construction, coming and going from door to door and hovering above the work-yards to seize the moment at which the unfecundated females will at last yield to their importunities.

Now here, despite the enormous population, despite my careful and incessant watch, it is impossible for me to distinguish a single male. And yet the distinction between the sexes is of the simplest. It is not necessary to take hold of the male. He can be recognized even at a distance by his slenderer frame, by his long, narrow abdomen, by his red sash. They might easily suggest two different species. The female is a pale russet-brown; the male is black, with a few red segments to his abdomen. Well, during the May building-operations, there is not a Bee in sight clad in black, with a slender, red-belted abdomen; in short, not a male.

Though the males do not come to visit the environs of the burrows, they might be elsewhere, particularly on the flowers where the females go plundering. I did not fail to explore the fields, insect-net in hand. My search was invariably fruitless. On the other hand, those males, now nowhere to be found, are plentiful later, in September, along the borders of the paths, on the close-set flowers of the eringo.

This singular colony, reduced exclusively to mothers, made me suspect the existence of several generations a year, whereof one at least must possess the other sex. I continued therefore, when the building-who was over, to keep a daily watch on the establishment of the Cylindrical Halictus, in order to seize the favourable moment that would verify my suspicions. For six weeks, solitude reigned above the burrows: not a single Halictus appeared; and the path, trodden by the wayfarers, lost its little heaps of rubbish, the only signs of the excavations. There was nothing outside to show that the warmth down below was hatching populous swarms.

July comes and already a few little mounds of fresh earth betoken work going on underground in preparation for an exodus in the near future. As the males, among the Hymenoptera, are generally further advanced than the females and quit their natal cells earlier, it was important that I should witness the first exits made, so as to dispel the least shadow of a doubt. A violent exhumation would have a great advantage over the natural exit: it would place the population of the burrows immediately under my eyes, before the departure of either sex. In this way, nothing could escape from me and I was dispensed from a watch which, for all its attentiveness, was not to be relied upon absolutely. I therefore resolve upon a reconnaissance with the spade.

I dig down to the full depth of the galleries and remove large lumps of earth which I take in my hands and break very carefully so as to examine all the parts that may contain cells. Halicti in the perfect state predominate, most of them still lodged in their unbroken chambers. Though they are not quite so numerous, there are also plenty of pupae. I collect them of every shade of colour, from dead-white, the sign of a recent transformation, to smoky-brown, the mark of an approaching metamorphosis. Larvae, in small quantities, complete the harvest. They are in the state of torpor that precedes the appearance of the pupa.

I prepare boxes with a bed of fresh, sifted earth to receive the larvae and the pupae, which I lodge each in a sort of half-cell formed by the imprint of my finger. I will await the transformation to decide to which sex they belong. As for the perfect insects, they are inspected, counted and at once released.

In the very unlikely supposition that the distribution of the sexes might vary in different parts of the colony, I make a second excavation, at a few yards' distance from the other. It supplies me with another collection both of perfect insects and of pupae and larvae.

When the metamorphosis of the laggards is completed, which does not take many days, I proceed to take a general census. It gives me two hundred and fifty Halicti. Well, in this number of Bees, collected in the burrow before any have emerged, I perceive none, absolutely none but females; or, to be mathematically accurate, I find just one male, one alone; and he is so small and feeble that he dies without quite succeeding in divesting himself of his nymphal bands. This solitary male is certainly accidental. A female population of two hundred and forty-nine Halicti implies other males than this abortion, or rather implies none at all. I therefore eliminate him as an accident of no value and conclude that, in the Cylindrical Halictus, the July generation consists of females only.

The building-operations start again in the second week of July. The galleries are restored and lengthened; new cells are fashioned and the old ones repaired. Follow the provisioning, the laying of the eggs, the closing of the cells; and, before July is over, there is solitude again. Let me also say that, during the building-period, not a male appears in sight, a fact which adds further proof to that already supplied by my excavations.

With the high temperature of this time of the year, the development of the larvae makes rapid progress: a month is sufficient for the various stages of the metamorphosis. On the 24th of August there are once more signs of life above the burrows of the Cylindrical Halictus, but under very different conditions. For the first time, both sexes are present. Males, so easily recognized by their black livery and their slim abdomen adorned with a red ring, hover backwards and forwards, almost level with the ground. They fuss about from burrow to burrow. A few rare females come out for a moment and then go in again.

I proceed to make an excavation with my spade; I gather indiscriminately whatever I come across. Larvae are very scarce; pupae abound, as do perfect insects. The list of my captures amounts to eighty males and fifty-eight females. The males, therefore, hitherto impossible to discover, either on the flowers around or in the neighbourhood of the burrows, could be picked up to-day by the hundred, if I wished. They outnumber the females by about four to three; they are also further developed, in accordance with the general rule, for most of the backward pupae give me only females.

Once the two sexes had appeared, I expected a third generation that would spend the winter in the larval state and recommence in May the annual cycle which I have just described. My anticipation proved to be at fault. Throughout September, when the sun beats upon the burrows, I see the males flitting in great numbers from one shaft to the other. Sometimes a female appears, returning from the fields, but with no pollen on her legs. She seeks her gallery, finds it, dives down and disappears.

The males, as though indifferent to her arrival, offer her no welcome, do not harass her with their amorous pursuits; they continue to visit the doors of the burrows with a winding and oscillating flight. For two months, I follow their evolutions. If they set foot on earth, it is to descend forthwith into some gallery that suits them.

It is not uncommon to see several of them on the threshold of the same burrow. Then each awaits his turn to enter; they are as peaceable in their relations as the females who are joint owners of a burrow. At other times, one wants to go in as a second is coming out. This sudden encounter produces no strife. The one leaving the hole withdraws a little to one side to make enough room for two; the other slips past as best he can. These peaceful meetings are all the more striking when we consider the usual rivalry between males of the same species.

No rubbish-mound stands at the mouth of the shafts, showing that the building has not been resumed; at the most, a few crumbs of earth are heaped outside. And by whom, pray? By the males and by them alone. The lazy sex has bethought itself of working. It turns navvy and shoots out grains of earth that would interfere with its continual entrances and exits. For the first time I witness a custom which no Hymenopteron had yet shown me: I see the males haunting the interior of the burrows with an assiduity equalling that of the mothers employed in nest-building.

The cause of these unwonted operations soon stands revealed. The females seen flitting above the burrows are very rare; the majority of the feminine population remain sequestered under ground, do not perhaps come out once during the whole of the latter part of summer. Those who do venture out go in again soon, empty-handed of course and always without any amorous teasing from the males, a number of whom are hovering above the burrows.

On the other hand, watch as carefully as I may, I do not discover a single act of pairing out of doors. The weddings are clandestine, therefore, and take place under ground. This explains the males' fussy visits to the doors of the galleries during the hottest hours of the day, their continual descents into the depths and their continual reappearances. They are looking for the females cloistered in the retirement of the cells.

A little spade-work soon turns suspicion into certainty. I unearth a sufficient number of couples to prove to me that the sexes come together underground. When the marriage is consummated, the red-belted one quits the spot and goes to die outside the burrow, after dragging from flower to flower the bit of life that remains to him. The other shuts herself up in her cell, there to await the return of the month of May.

September is spent by the Halictus solely in nuptial celebrations. Whenever the sky is fine, I witness the evolutions of the males above the burrows, with their continual entrances and exits; should the sun be veiled, they take refuge down the passages. The more impatient, half-hidden in the pit, show their little black heads outside, as though peeping for the least break in the clouds that will allow them to pay a brief visit to the flowers round about. They also spend the night in the burrows. In the morning, I attend their levee; I see them put their head to the window, take a look at the weather and then go in again until the sun beats on the encampment.

The same mode of life is continued throughout October, but the males become less numerous from day to day as the stormy season approaches and fewer females remain to be wooed. By the time that the first cold weather comes, in November, complete solitude reigns over the burrows. I once more have recourse to the spade. I find none but females in their cells. There is not one male left. All have vanished, all are dead, the victims of their life of pleasure and of the wind and rain. Thus ends the cycle of the year for the Cylindrical Halictus.

In February, after a hard winter, when the snow had lain on the ground for a fortnight, I wanted once more to look into the matter of my Halicti. I was in bed with pneumonia and at the point of death, to all appearances. I had little or no pain, thank God, but extreme difficulty in living. With the little lucidity left to me, being able to do no other sort of observing, I observed myself dying; I watched with a certain interest the gradual falling to pieces of my poor machinery. Were it not for the terror of leaving my family, who were still young, I would gladly have departed. The after-life must have so many higher and fairer truths to teach us.

My hour had not yet come. When the little lamps of thought began to emerge, all flickering, from the dusk of unconsciousness, I wished to take leave of the Hymenopteron, my fondest joy, and first of all of my neighbour, the Halictus. My son Emile took the spade and went and dug the frozen ground. Not a male was found, of course; but there were plenty of females, numbed with the cold in their cells.

A few were brought for me to see. Their little chambers showed no efflorescence of rime, with which all the surrounding earth was coated. The waterproof varnish had been wonderfully efficacious. As for the anchorites, roused from their torpor by the warmth of the room, they began to wander about my bed, where I followed them vaguely with my fading eyes.

May came, as eagerly awaited by the sick man as by the Halicti. I left Orange for Serignan, my last stage, I expect. While I was moving, the Bees resumed their building. I gave them a regretful glance, for I had still much to learn in their company. I have never since met with such a mighty colony.

These old observations on the habits of the Cylindrical Halictus may now be followed by a general summary which will incorporate the recent data supplied by the Zebra Halictus and the Early Halictus.

The females of the Cylindrical Halictus whom I unearth from November onwards are evidently fecundated, as is proved by the assiduity of the males during the preceding two months and most positively confirmed by the couples discovered in the course of my excavations. These females spend the winter in their cells, as do many of the early-hatching melliferous insects, such as Anthophorae and Mason-bees, who build their nests in the spring, the larvae reaching the perfect state in the summer and yet remaining shut up in their cells until the following May. But there is this great difference in the case of the Cylindrical Halictus, that in the autumn the females leave their cells for a time to receive the males under ground. The couples pair and the males perish. Left alone, the females return to their cells, where they spend the inclement season.

The Zebra Halicti, studied first at Orange and then, under better conditions, at Serignan, in my own enclosure, have not these subterranean customs: they celebrate their weddings amid the joys of the light, the sun and the flowers. I see the first males appear in the middle of September, on the centauries. Generally there are several of them courting the same bride. Now one, then another, they swoop upon her suddenly, clasp her, leave her, seize hold of her again. Fierce brawls decide who shall possess her. One is accepted and the others decamp. With a swift and angular flight, they go from flower to flower, without alighting. They hover on the wing, looking about them, more intent on pairing than on eating.

The Early Halictus did not supply me with any definite information, partly through my own fault, partly through the difficulty of excavation in a stony soil, which calls for the pick-axe rather than the spade. I suspect her of having the nuptial customs of the Cylindrical Halictus.

There is another difference, which causes certain variations of detail in these customs. In the autumn, the females of the Cylindrical Halictus leave their burrows seldom or not at all. Those who do go out invariably come back after a brief halt upon the flowers. All pass the winter in the natal cells. On the other hand, those of the Zebra Halictus move their quarters, meet the males outside and do not return to the burrows, which my autumn excavations always find deserted. They hibernate in the first hiding-places that offer.

In the spring, the females, fecundated since the autumn, come out: the Cylindrical Halicti from their cells, the Zebra Halicti from their various shelters, the Early Halicti apparently from their chambers, like the first. They work at their nests in the absence of any male, as do also the Social Wasps, whose whole brood has perished excepting a few mothers also fecundated in the autumn. In both cases, the assistance of the males is equally real, only it has preceded the laying by about six months.

So far, there is nothing new in the life of the Halicti; but here is where the unexpected appears: in July, another generation is produced; and this time without males. The absence of masculine assistance is no longer a mere semblance here, due to an earlier fecundation: it is a reality established beyond a doubt by the continuity of my observations and by my excavations during the summer season, before the emergence of the new Bees. At this period, a little before July, if my spade unearth the cells of any one of my three Halicti, the result is always females, nothing but females, with exceedingly rare exceptions.

True, it may be said that the second progeny is due to the mothers who knew the males in autumn and who would be able to nidify twice a year. The suggestion is not admissible. The Zebra Halictus confirms what I say. She shows us the old mothers no longer leaving the home but mounting guard at the entrance to the burrows. No harvesting- or pottery-work is possible with these absorbing doorkeeping-functions. Therefore there is no new family, even admitting that the mothers' ovaries are not depleted.

I do not know if a similar argument is valid in the case of the Cylindrical Halictus. Has she any general survivors? As my attention had not yet been directed on this point in the old days, when I had the insect at my door, I have no records to go upon. For all that, I am inclined to think that the portress of the Zebra Halictus is unknown here. The reason of this absence would be the number of workers at the start.

In May, the Zebra Halictus, living by herself in her winter retreat, founds her house alone. When her daughters succeed her, in July, she is the only grandmother in the establishment and the post of portress falls to her. With the Cylindrical Halictus, the conditions are different. Here the May workers are many in the same burrow, where they dwell in common during the winter. Supposing that they survive when the business of the household is finished, to whom will the office of overseer fall? Their number is so great and they are all so full of zeal that disorder would be inevitable. But we can leave this small matter unsettled pending further information.

The fact remains that females, females exclusively, have come out of the eggs laid in May. They have descendants, of that there is no room for doubt; they procreate though there are no males in their time. From this generation by a single sex, there spring, two months later, males and females. These mate; and the same order of things recommences.

To sum up, judging by the three species that form the subject of my investigations, the Halicti have two generations a year: one in the spring, issuing from the mothers who have lived through the winter after being fecundated in the autumn; the other in the summer, the fruit of parthenogenesis, that is to say, of reproduction by the powers of the mother alone. Of the union of the two sexes, females alone are born; parthenogenesis gives birth at the same time to females and males.

When the mother, the original genitrix, has been able once to dispense with a coadjutor, why does she need one later? What is the puny idler there for? He was unnecessary. Why does he become necessary now? Shall we ever obtain a satisfactory answer to the question? It is doubtful. However, without much hope of succeeding we will one day consult the Gall-fly, who is better-versed than we in the tangled problem of the sexes.



INDEX.

Alpine Odynerus.

Amadeus' Eumenes.

Ammophila (see also Hairy Ammophila).

Andrena.

Andrenoid Osmia.

Ant.

Anthidium (see the varieties below, Cotton-bee, Resin Bee).

Anthidium bellicosum.

Anthidium cingulatum (see Girdled Anthidium).

Anthidium diadema (see Diadem Anthidium).

Anthidium florentinum (see Florentine Anthidium).

Anthidium Latreillii (see Latreille's Resin-bee).

Anthidium manicatum (see Manicate Anthidium).

Anthidium quadrilobum (see Four-lobed Resin-bee).

Anthidium scapulare (see Scapular Anthidium).

Anthidium septemdentatum (see Seven-pronged Resin-bee).

Anthocopa papaveris (see Upholsterer-bee).

Anthophora (see also Anthophora of the Walls, Hairy-footed Anthophora, Masked Anthophora).

Anthophora of the Walls.

Anthophora parietina (see Anthophora of the Walls).

Anthophora pilipes (see Hairy-footed Anthophora).

Anthrax (see Anthrax sinuata).

Anthrax sinuata.

Aphis (see Plant-louse).

Archimedes.

Augustus, the Emperor.

Bee.

Beetle.

Bembex.

Black, Adam and Charles.

Black Plant-louse.

Black Psen.

Black-tipped Leaf-cutter.

Blue Osmia.

Book-louse.

Brown Snail.

Bulimulus radiatus.

Bumble-bee.

Calicurgus (see Pompilus).

Capricorn.

Carpenter-bee.

Cat.

Cemonus unicolor.

Cerambyx (see Capricorn).

Ceratina (see also the varieties below).

Ceratina albilabris.

Ceratina callosa.

Ceratina chalcites.

Ceratina coerulea.

Cerceris.

Cetonia.

Chaffinch.

Chalicodoma (see Mason-bee).

Chrysis flammea.

Cockroach.

Coelyoxis caudata.

Coelyoxis octodentata.

Colletes.

Common Snail.

Common Wasp.

Cotton-bee (see also the varieties of Anthidium).

Crayfish.

Cricket.

Crioceris merdigera (see Lily-beetle).

Cryptus bimaculatus.

Cryptus gyrator.

Cylindrical Halictus.

Darwin, Charles Robert.

Decticus verrucivorus.

Devillario, Henri.

Diadem Anthidium.

Dioxys cincta.

Dog.

Dragon-fly.

Dryden, John.

Dufour, Jean Marie Leon.

Dung-beetle.

Dzierzon, Johann.

Early Halictus.

Earth-worm.

Earwig.

Epeira (see Garden Spider).

Ephialtes divinator.

Ephialtes mediator.

Ephippiger.

Eumenes Amadei (see Amadeus' Eumenes).

Euritema rubicola.

Fabre, Emile, the author's son.

Fabricius, Johann Christian.

Feeble Leaf-cutter.

Field-mouse.

Florentine Anthidium.

Fly (see also House-fly).

Foenus pyrenaicus.

Four-lobed Resin-bee.

Franklin, Benjamin.

Garden Snail.

Garden Spider.

Girdled Anthidium.

Girdled Snail (see Brown Snail).

Gnat.

Golden Osmia.

Goldfinch.

Grasshopper (see also Great Green Grasshopper).

Great Green Grasshopper.

Great Peacock Moth.

Green Grasshopper (see Ephippiger, Great Green Grasshopper).

Green Osmia.

Grey Lizard.

Hairy Ammophila.

Hairy-footed Anthophora.

Halictus (see also the varieties below).

Halictus cylindricus (see Cylindrical Halictus).

Halictus malachurus (see Early Halictus).

Halictus zebrus (see Zebra Halictus).

Hare-footed Leaf-cutter.

Helix algira.

Helix aspersa (see Common Snail).

Helix caespitum (see Garden Snail).

Helix nemoralis.

Helix striata.

Heriades rubicola.

Herring.

Hive-bee.

Honey-bee (see Hive-bee).

Horned Osmia.

House-dog (see Dog).

House-fly.

Kid.

Kirby, William.

La Fontaine, Jean de.

Lamb.

Languedocian Sphex.

Lanius collurio (see Red-backed Shrike).

La Palice, Jacques de Chabannes, Seigneur de.

Latreille, Pierre Andre.

Latreille's Osmia.

Latreille's Resin-bee.

Leaf-cutter, Leaf-cutting Bee (see Megachile).

Leaf-insect.

Leucopsis.

Lily-beetle.

Lithurgus (see also the varieties below).

Lithurgus chrysurus.

Lithurgus cornutus.

Lizard (see also Grey Lizard).

Locust.

Locusta viridissima (see Great Green Grasshopper).

Macmillan Co.

"Mademoiselle Mori", author of.

Manicate Anthidium.

Mantis, Mantis religiosa (see Praying Mantis).

Masked Anthophora.

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.

May-fly.

Meade-Waldo, Geoffrey.

Megachile (see also the varieties below).

Megachile albocincta (see White-girdled Leaf-cutter).

Megachile apicalis (see Black-tipped Leaf-cutter).

Megachile argentata (see Silvery Leaf-cutter).

Megachile Dufourii (see Silky Leaf-cutter).

Megachile imbecilla (see Feeble Leaf-cutter).

Megachile lagopoda (see Hare-footed Leaf-cutter).

Megachile sericans (see Silky Leaf-cutter).

Melitta (see Colletes).

Miall, Bernard.

Midwife Toad.

Morawitz' Osmia.

Odynerus (see also the varieties below)

Odynerus alpestris (see Alpine Odynerus).

Odynerus delphinalis.

Odynerus rubicola.

Oil-beetle.

Omalus auratus.

Osmia (see also the varieties below).

Osmia andrenoides (see Andrenoid Osmia).

Osmia aurulenta (see Golden Osmia).

Osmia cornuta (see Horned Osmia).

Osmia cyanea (see Blue Osmia).

Osmia cyanoxantha.

Osmia detrita (see Ragged Osmia).

Osmia Latreillii (see Latreille's Osmia).

Osmia Morawitzi (see Morawitz' Osmia).

Osmia parvula (see Tiny Osmia).

Osmia rufo-hirta (see Red Osmia).

Osmia tricornis (see Three-horned Osmia).

Osmia tridentata (see Three-pronged Osmia).

Osmia versicolor (see Variegated Osmia).

Osmia viridana (see Green Osmia).

Pelopaeus.

Perez, Professor Jean.

Philanthus (see Philanthus apivorus).

Philanthus apivorus.

Plant-louse (see also Black Plant-louse).

Pompilus.

Praying Mantis.

Prosopis confusa.

Psen atratus (see Black Psen).

Rabelais, Francois.

Ragged Osmia.

Reaumur, Rene Antoine Ferchault de.

Red-backed Shrike.

Red-Osmia.

Resin-bee (see also the varieties).

Ringed Calicurgus (see Pompilus).

Rodwell, Miss Frances.

Rosechafer (see Cetonia).

Sapyga (see Spotted Sapyga).

Sardine.

Scapular Anthidium.

Scolia.

Scorpion.

Seven-pronged Resin-bee.

Shrike (see Red-backed Shrike).

Silky Leaf-cutter.

Silvery Leaf-cutter.

Snail (see also the varieties)

Social Wasp (see Common Wasp).

Solenius lapidarius.

Solenius vagus.

Sophocles.

Sparrow.

Spence, William.

Sphex (see also Languedocian Sphex, Yellow-winged Sphex.)

Spotted Sapyga.

Stick-insect.

Stizus.

Tachina.

Tachytes.

Tarantula.

Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander.

Termite.

Three-horned Osmia.

Three-pronged Osmia.

Tiberius, the Emperor.

Tiny Osmia.

Tripoxylon figulus.

Unarmed Zonitis (see Zonitis mutica).

Upholsterer-bee.

Variegated Osmia.

Virgil.

Wasp (see also Common Wasp).

Weaving Spider.

Weevil.

White-girdled Leaf-cutter.

Wolf.

Worm (see Earth-worm).

Xylocopa violacea (see Carpenter-bee).

Yellow-winged Sphex.

Zebra Halictus.

Zonitis mutica.

THE END