The H 



armas 



rials found occupants from the first year. The 

 Mason-bees had chosen the interstices be- 

 tween the stones as a dormitory where to pass 

 the night, in serried groups. The powerful 

 Eyed Lizard, who, when close-pressed, at- 

 tacks both man and dog, wide-mouthed, had 

 selected a cave wherein to lie in wait for the 

 passing Scarab;^ the Black-eared Chat, garbed 

 like a Dominican, white-frocked with black 

 wings, sat on the top stone, singing his short 

 rustic lay: his nest, with its sky-blue eggs, 

 must be somewhere in the heap. The little 

 Dominican disappeared with the loads of 

 stones. I regret him: he would have been a 

 charming neighbour. The Eyed Lizard I do 

 not regret at all. 



The sand sheltered a different colony. Here, 

 the Bembeces^ were sweeping the thresh- 

 old of their burrows, flinging a curve of dust 

 behind them; the Languedoclan Sphex was 

 dragging her Ephlpplgera^ by the antennae; a 

 Stizus* was storing her preserves of CIcadellae.'* 



^A Dung-beetle also known as the Sacred Beetle. Cf. 

 Insect Life: chaps i and ii; and The Life and Love of 

 the Insect: chaps, i to iv. — Translator's Note. 



*A species of Digger-wasps. Cf. Insect Life: chap, 

 xvi. — Translator's Note. 



'A species of green Grasshopper. — Translator's Note. 



*A species of Hunting Wasp. — Translator's Note. 



"Froghoppers. — Translator's Note. 



21 



