The Mason-Wasps 



tics. Nowadays, every spring, I have a 

 populous colony of her before my eyes in 

 one of the paths of my enclosure. When 

 the period for the works arrives, I surround 

 the hamlet with stakes to mark the site, lest 

 heedless footsteps should destroy the pretty 

 chimneys built of grains of earth. 



The second, O. alpestris, Sauss., is by 

 trade a resin-worker. Possessing the same 

 tool as her colleague the miner, but not the 

 same skill, she does not dig herself a dwell- 

 ing; she prefers to settle down in borrowed 

 lodgings provided by an empty Snail-shell. 

 The shells of Helix nemoralis, of H. as- 

 persa,^ when very incompletely developed, 

 and of Bulimulus radiatus are the only 

 dwellings that I have known her to occupy 

 and also the only ones that would serve her 

 turn under the stone-heaps where, in com- 

 pany with Anthidium bellicosum, she per- 

 forms her labours in July and August. 



Saved by the Snail from the hard task 

 of excavation, she specializes in mosaic and 

 produces a work of art which is superior 

 in elegance to the miner's temporary guil- 

 loche. Her materials are, on the one hand, 

 resin ; on the other, little bits of gravel. Her 

 method is very unlike that of the two resin- 



^ The Common Snail. — Translator's Note. 

 178 



