Bramble-bees and Others 



Shrubs that weighed a kilogramme^ and was 

 the size of a child's head. A twig hardly 

 thicker than a straw served as its support. 

 The casual sight of that lump swinging over 

 the spot on which I had sat down made me 

 think of the mishap that befel Garo.^ If such 

 nests were plentiful in the trees, any one seek- 

 ing the shade would run a grave risk of hav- 

 ing his head smashed. 



After the Masons, the Carpenters. Among 

 the guild of wood-workers, the most powerful 

 is the Carpenter-bee (Xylocopa violaceaY 

 a very large Bee of formidable appearance, 

 clad in black velvet with violet-coloured 

 wings. The mother gives her larvae as a 

 dwelling a cylindrical gallery which she digs 

 in rotten wood. Useless timber lying exposed 

 to the air, vine-poles, large logs of fire-wood 

 seasoning out of doors, heaped up in front of 

 the farm-house porch, stumps of trees, vine- 

 stocks and big branches of all kinds are her 



^2.205 pounds avoirdupois. — Translator's Note. 



2The hero of La Fontaine's fable, Le Gland et la Ci- 

 trouille, who wondered why the acorns grew on such 

 tall trees and the pumpkins on such low vines, until he 

 fell asleep under one of the latter and a pumpkin fell 

 upon his nose. — Translator's Note. 



^Cf. The Life of the Spider: chap. i. — Translator's 

 Note. 



224 



