Experiments 



ference, they must break through the wall 

 situated above their heads, I shelter the 

 whole under a wide bell-glass and wait for the 

 month of May, the period of the deliverance. 

 The results far exceed my anticipations. 

 The clay stopper, the work of my fingers, is 

 perforated with a round hole, differing in no 

 wise from that which the Mason-bee contrives 

 through her native mortar dome. The vege- 

 table barrier, new to my prisoners, namely, 

 the sorghum cylinder, also opens with a neat 

 orifice, which might have been the work of a 

 punch. Lastly, the brown-paper cover allows 

 the Bee to make her exit not by bursting 

 through, by making a violent rent, but once 

 more by a clearly-defined round hole. My 

 Bees therefore are capable of a task for which 

 they were not born; to come out of their reed 

 cells they do what probably none of their race 

 did before them ; they perforate the wall of 

 sorghum-pith, they make a hole In the paper 

 barrier, just as they would have pierced their 

 natural clay ceiling. When the moment 

 comes to free themselves, the nature of the 

 impediment does not stop them, provided that 

 It be not beyond their strength ; and hence- 

 forth the argument of incapacity cannot be 

 35 



