The Mason-bees 



I am able to imagine; in vain, thinking to 

 increase the difliculties, do I repeat the rota- 

 tion as often as five times over: at the start, 

 on the road, on arriving; it makes no differ- 

 ence: the Mason-bees return and the pro- 

 portion of returns on the same day fluctuates 

 between thirty and forty per cent. It goes 

 to my heart to abandon an idea suggested by 

 so famous a man of science and cherished all 

 the more readily inasmuch as I thought it 

 likely to provide a final solution. The facts 

 are there, more eloquent than any number of 

 ingenious views; and the problem remains as 

 mysterious as ever. 



In the following year, 1881, I began experi- 

 menting again, but in a different way. 

 Hitherto, I had worked on the level. To re- 

 turn to the nest, my lost Bees had only to 

 cross slight obstacles, the hedges and spin- 

 neys of the tilled fields. To-day, I propose 

 to add to the difliculties of distance those of 

 the ground to be traversed. Discontinuing 

 all my backing- and whirling-tactics, things 

 which I recognize as useless, I think of re- 

 leasing my Chalicodomae in the thick of the 

 Serignan Woods. How will they escape from 

 that labyrinth, where, in the early days, I 

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