2/8 INSECT LIFE 



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prudent in the south, but, for some reason unknown 

 to me, she generally chooses some other base than 

 the stone of a wall. A rolled pebble, often hardly 

 larger than one's fist, — one of those with which the 

 waters of the glacial period covered the terraces of 

 the Rhone valley, — is her favourite support. The 

 great ease with which such a one is found may 

 influence her ; all our slightly raised plateaux, all our 

 arid thyme -clad ground, are but heaped pebbles 

 cemented with red earth. In the valleys the bee can 

 also use the stones gathered in torrent beds ; near 

 Orange, for instance, her favourite spots are the 

 alluviums of the Aygues, with their stretches of rolled 

 boulders no longer visited by water. Or if a pebble 

 be wanting, she will establish her nest on a boundary 

 stone or an enclosing wall. 



Chalicodoma sicula has a yet greater variety of 

 choice. Her favourite position is under a tile project- 

 ing from the edge of a roof. There is scarcely a little 

 dwelling in the fields that does not thus shelter her 

 nests. There, every spring, she establishes populous 

 colonies, whose masonry, transmitted from one 

 generation to another, and yearly enlarged, finally 

 covers a very considerable surface. I have seen such 

 a one under the tiles of a shed, which spread over 

 five or six square yards. When the colony were 

 hard at work, their number and humming fairly made 

 one dizzy. The underpart of a balcony pleases them 

 equally, or the frame of an unused window, — above 

 all, if closed by a sun-shutter, which offers a free 

 passage. But these are great meeting-places, where 

 labour, each for herself, hundreds and thousands of 

 workers. If alone, which not seldom occurs, Chali- 



