40 PROTECTION OF PLANTS, 1918-19 



burrow absorbs nearly |all their energies, and as a result very few cells, three or 

 four at most, can be furnished, provisioned and populated. The accessory task 

 has become the major one, and essentials are neglected. 



Colletes succincta goes a step further. One day a mother hastening to ovi- 

 posit, and not finding a favourable spot for the construction of a vertical burrow, 

 but finding a stone wall to hand, adapts herself to this environment and pierces 

 a horizontal gallery. The cells which in the first instance were to be found arran- 

 ged radially around a central axis, are here, by virtue of the nature of the gallery, 

 thrown down into a single vertical arrangement. 



Finally a third Colletes, more knowing than the others, says to herself that 

 these branches only mean loss of time, and useless expenditure of energy. She 

 therefore does away with them, and builds her cells one following the other, 

 saving in this way an enormous amount of time and labour. Is not this evolution 

 logical? It would appear so, but one small point is lacking, which is a vital one 

 in this case, and that is to prove that there really has been a process of evolution 

 from the vertical form of nest to the more perfected horizontal form. This proof 

 has never been forthcoming, and probably never will be. 



But let us leave speculation and describe briefly the habits of Colletes inaeqiialis. 

 These insects make their appearance during the first days of spring, towards the 

 third or fourth week of April. Last year (1918) I observed them hatching about 

 the 18th of that month. Large patches of snow still covered the ground, and 

 the first rays of the sun have hardly had time to warm up the earth sufficiently 

 to carry down to the depths the news of the return of fair weather, when our bees 

 are already awakening from their winter sleep, those which, as we can testify, 

 have passed the winter in the adult state. They move restlessly about in their 

 narrow prison, bite a hole in the fine pellicle of their cell and dig a tunnel through 

 the thick bed of sand, up to the light which they are beholding for the first time. 



Ah! who can divine the sensations of these tiny beings when the light is 

 reflected for the first 'time in their many facetted eyes; when, for the first time 

 their tiny bodies feel the warm caresses of the sun's rays, filling them with a 

 sense of well being and delight. For them heat and light are everything. They 

 are the two factors, which put their whole being into motion, but let one or the 

 other fail, the temperature fall, or the sun hide his face, and their activity sud- 

 denly ceases, more surely than if one mutilated their wings or cut off their feet. 

 The new world which is revealed to the young Colletes, dazzles them ; they cannot 

 believe their eyes. There they are, rubbing their antennae with a stupefied air, 

 the tarsi moving unceasingly, stroking the abdomen, a process of mutual cleansing, 

 removing the last traces of the arduous subterranean journey. 



Finally, a sudden resolve is made in an instant, and the creature sallies forth 



