The Ageniae 



custom and collect loam ready prepared, 

 wet earth, mud or naturally plastic clay; or, 

 copying the method of the Mason-bees, do 

 they use cement scraped together atom by 

 atom and converted into paste with the 

 saliva? Direct observation has failed to 

 tell me anything in this respect. From the 

 colour of the cells, which are now red, like 

 the soil of our stony expanses, now whitish, 

 like the dust of the highways, now greyish, 

 like certain chalk-beds in the neighbour- 

 hood, I see plainly that the material for the 

 pots is collected everywhere indifferently, 

 but I am unable to determine whether, at 

 the actual moment of collection, it is paste 

 or powder. 



I incline, however, to the latter al- 

 ternative, because of the impermeable inner 

 surface of the cells. Earth already soaked 

 with natural moisture would not readily ab- 

 sorb the Agenia's saliva and could not ac- 

 quire the watertight qualities which I find 

 that it possesses. This peculiarity makes 

 it highly probable that the cement is col- 

 lected dry and that the insect mixes it in 

 order to turn it into plastic clay. Then how 

 are we to explain the outside of the pot, 

 which melts upon contact with a drop of 

 water, and the inside, which remains intact? 

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