The Resin-bees 



nants of the putrefied Snail? That remains 

 to be seen. With a httle pocket-trowel, the 

 inquisitorial implement which always accom- 

 panies me, I make a wide window in the mid- 

 dle of the final whorl. If I see a gleaming 

 resin floor, with incrustations of gravel, the 

 thing is settled: I possess an Anthidium's nest. 

 But, oh, the number of failures that go to 

 one success! The number of windows vainly 

 opened in shells whose bottom is stuffed with 

 clay or with noisome corpses! Thus picking 

 shells among the overturned stone-heaps, in- 

 specting them in the sun, breaking into them 

 with the trowel and nearly always rejecting 

 them, I manage, after repeated attempts, to 

 obtain my materials for this chapter. 



The first to hatch is the Seven-pronged 

 Resin-bee {Jnthidium septemdoitatum) . We 

 see her, in the month of April, lumbering 

 along to the rubbish-heaps in the quarries and 

 the low boundary-walls, in search of her 

 Snail-shell. She is a contemporary of the 

 Three-horned Osmia, who begins operations 

 in the last week of April, and often occupies 

 the same stone-heap, settling in the next shell. 

 She is well-advised to start work early and 

 to be on neighbourly terms with the Osmia 



307 



