Bramble-Dwellers 



intervals of a few days, of a few hours. How 

 can this slight difference in age affect the total 

 evolution, which lasts a year? Mathematical 

 accuracy has nothing to do with the case. 

 Each germ, each grub has its individual 

 energy, determined we know not how and 

 varying in each germ or grub. This excess 

 of vitality belongs to the egg before it leaves 

 the ovary. Might it not, at the moment of 

 hatching, be the cause why this or that larva 

 takes precedence of its elders or its juniors, 

 chronology being altogether a secondary con- 

 sideration? When the hen sits upon her eggs, 

 is the oldest always the first to hatch? In the 

 same way, the oldest larva, lodged in the bot- 

 tom storey, need not necessarily reach the per- 

 fect state first. 



A second argument, had we reflected more 

 deeply on the matter, would have shaken our 

 faith in any strict mathematical sequence. 

 The same brood forming the string of cocoons 

 in a bramble-stem contains both males and fe- 

 males; and the two sexes are divided in the 

 series indiscriminately. Now it is the rule 

 among the Bees for the males to issue from 

 the cocoon a little earlier than the females. In 

 the case of the Three-pronged Osmia, the 



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