The Osmiae 



depths of her retreats. It remains to be seen 

 whether my wish can be realized by some arti- 

 fice or other. 



When studying the insect's mental capacity, 

 especially its very retentive memory for 

 places, I was led to ask myself whether it 

 would not be possible to make a properly 

 chosen Bee build in any place that I wished, 

 even in my study. And I wanted, for an ex- 

 periment of this sort, not an individual but a 

 numerous colony. My preference leaned to- 

 ward the Three-horned Osmia, who is very 

 plentiful in my neighbourhood, where, to- 

 gether with Latreille's Osmia, she frequents 

 in particular the monstrous nests of the Chali- 

 codoma of the Sheds. I therefore thought 

 out a scheme for making the Three-horned 

 Osmia accept my study as her settlement and 

 build her nests in glass tubes, through which 

 I could easily watch the process. To these 

 crystal galleries, which might well inspire a 

 certain distrust, were to be added more natu- 

 ral retreats: reeds of every length and thick- 

 ness and disused Chalicodoma-cells, taken 

 from among the biggest and the smallest. A 

 scheme like this sounds mad. I admit it, 

 while mentioning that perhaps none ever suc- 



63 



