Experiments 



thickness of wall is really the same. Once out- 

 side its earthen abode, the insect has done all 

 that it was destined to do In order to release 

 Itself; to move freely on the mortar dome 

 represents to it the end of the release, the end 

 of the act of boring. Around the nest a new 

 barrier appears, the wall made by the paper 

 bag; but, in order to pierce this, the insect 

 would have to repeat the act which It has just 

 accomplished, the act which it is not Intended 

 to perform more than once in Its life; it 

 would, in short, have to make into a double 

 act that which by nature Is a single one; and 

 the insect cannot do this, for the sole reason 

 that It has not the wish to. The Mason-bee 

 perishes for lack of the smallest gleam of in- 

 telligence. And this is the singular Intellect 

 In which it Is the fashion nowadays to see a 

 germ of human reason ! The fashion will 

 pass and the facts remain, bringing us back 

 to the good old notions of the soul and Its 

 Immortal destinies, 



Reaumur tells us how his friend, Duhamel, 

 having seized a Mason-bee with a forceps 

 when she had half entered the cell, head fore- 

 most, to fill it with pollen-paste, carried her 

 to a closet at some distance from the spot 

 39 



