More Beetles 



telling step by step my observer's rosary. 

 My prayer Is an "Oh!" of admiration. 



To this delicious festival pilgrims have 

 hastened, to gain the Lenten indulgences and 

 to slake their thirst. Here, dipping their 

 tongues by turns into the holy-water stoup of 

 the same flower, are the Anthophora ^ and 

 her tyrant the Melecta.^ Robber and vic- 

 tim sip their nectar like good neighbours. 

 There is no ill-feeling: between them. Both 

 attend to their own affairs in peace. They 

 seem not to know each other. 



The Osmiae,^ clad in black-and-red velvet, 

 dust their ventral brushes with pollen and 

 make hoards of meal In the reeds round 

 about. Here are the Eristales,'* noisy, 

 giddy-pated insects, whose wings shimmer in 

 the sun like scales of mica. Drunk with 

 syrup, they withdraw from the festival and 

 sleep off their debauch in the shadow of a 

 leaf. 



1 One of the wild Bees. Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. 

 Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mat- 

 tos: chap, viii ; and Bramble-bees and Others, by J. 

 Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mat- 

 tos: chaps, ii., iv. and vii. — Translator's Note. 



2 A parasitic Bee. Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. viii. — 

 Translator's Note. 



3 For these wild bees, cf. Bramble-bees and others: 

 passim. — Translator's Note. 



4 Drone-flies. — Translator's Note. 



2 



