Bramble-bees and Others 



the long practice of its predecessors, builds its 

 straight row of cells on a very different plan 

 from that demanded by the spiral cavity of 

 the shell, which increases in size as it goes on. 

 . The slow school of the ages, the gradual 

 acquisitions of the past, the legacies of here- 

 dity count for nothing, therefore, in the 

 Osmia's education. Without any novitiate on 

 its own part or that of its forebears, the in- 

 sect is versed straight away in the calling 

 which It has to pursue; it possesses, insepara- 

 ble from its nature, the qualities demanded by 

 its craft: some which are invariable and be- 

 long to the province of instinct; others flexi- 

 ble, belonging to the domain of discernment. 

 To divide a free lodging into chambers by 

 means of mud partitions; to fill those cham- 

 bers with a heap of pollen-flour, with a few 

 sups of honey in the central part where the 

 egg is to lie; in short, to prepare board and 

 lodging for the unknown, for a family which 

 the mothers hav^e never seen in the past and 

 will never see in the future : this, in its essen- 

 tial features, is the function of the Osmia's 

 instinct. Here, everything is harmoniously, 

 inflexibly, permanently preordained; the in- 

 sect has but to follow its blind impulse to at- 



sio 



