Bramble-bees and Others 



We have, therefore, a plant that Is new to the 

 country for many miles around, a cotton-field 

 which the Serignan Cotton-bees had never 

 utilized before I came and sowed it. 



Nor had they ever made use of the Baby- 

 lonian centaury, which I was the first to in- 

 troduce, in order to cover my ungrateful stony 

 soil with some little vegetation. They had 

 never seen anything like the colossal centaury, 

 imported from the region of the Euphrates. 

 Nothing in the local flora, not even the cotton- 

 thistle, had prepared them for this stalk as 

 thick as a child's wrist, crowned at a height 

 of nine feet with a multitude of yellow balls, 

 nor for those great leaves spreading over the 

 ground in an enormous rosette. What will 

 they do in the presence of such a find? They 

 will take possession of it with no more hesi- 

 tation than if it were the humble St. Barna- 

 by's thistle, the usual purveyor. 



In fact, I place a few stalks of clary and 

 Babylonian centaury, duly dried, near the 

 reed-hives. The Diadem Anthidium is not 

 long in discovering the rich harvest. Straight 

 away the wool is recognized as being of ex- 

 cellent quality, so much so that, during the 

 three or four weeks of nest-building, I can 



29$ 



