The Mason-bees 



exiled untenanted, has installed herself there 

 and made it her property, not knowing that 

 it is already the property of another. She 

 has perhaps been victualling it since yesterday 

 evening. Close upon ten o'clock, when the 

 heat is at its full, the mistress of the house 

 suddenly arrives : her title-deeds as the origi- 

 nal occupant are inscribed for me in undenia- 

 ble characters on her thorax white with chalk. 

 Here is one of my travellers back. 



Over waving corn, over fields all pink with 

 sainfoin, she has covered the two miles and a 

 half and here she is, back at the nest, after 

 foraging on the way, for the doughty creature 

 arrives with her abdomen yellow with pollen. 

 To come home again from the verge of the 

 horizon is wonderful in itself; to come home 

 with a well-filled pollen-brush is superlative 

 economy. A journey, even a forced journey, 

 always becomes a foraging expedition. 



She finds the stranger in the nest. 



''What's this? I'll teach you!" 



And the owner falls furiously upon the in- 

 truder, who possibly was meaning no harm. 

 A hot chase in mid-air now takes place be- 

 tween the two masons. From time to time, 

 they hover almost without movement, face to 

 44 



