Bramble-Dwellers 



shreds, to dust, wherein it is impossible for me 

 to recognize a vestige, save perhaps here and 

 there a head, of the exterminated unfortu- 

 nates. The Osmia, therefore, has not re- 

 spected the live cocoons of a foreign species : 

 she has passed out over the bodies of the in- 

 tervening Solenii. Did I say passed over their 

 bodies? She has passed through them, 

 crunched the laggards between her jaws, 

 treated them as cavalierly as she treats my 

 disks. And yet those barricades were alive. 

 No matter, when her hour came, the Osmia 

 went ahead, destroying everything upon her 

 road. Here, at any rate, is a law on which we 

 can rely: the supreme indifference of the ani- 

 mal to all that does not form part of itself 

 and its race. 



And what of the sense of smell, distinguish- 

 ing the dead from the living? Here, all are 

 alive; and the Bee pierces her way as through 

 a row of corpses. If I am told that the smell 

 of the Solenii may differ from that of the 

 Osmias, I shall reply that such extreme sub- 

 tlety in the insect's olfactory apparatus seems 

 to me a rather far-fetched supposition. Then 

 what is my explanation of the two facts? The 

 explanation? I have none to give! I am 



34 



