The Halicti : Parthenogenesis 



is completed, which does not take many days, 

 I proceed to talce a general census. It gives 

 me two hundred and fifty Halicti. Well, in 

 this number of Bees, collected in the burrow 

 before any have emerged, I perceive none, ab- 

 solutely none but females; or, to be mathe- 

 matically accurate, I find just one male, one 

 alone; and he is so small and feeble that he 

 dies without quite succeeding in divesting him- 

 self of his nymphal bands. This solitary male 

 is certainly accidental. A female population 

 of two hundred and forty-nine Halicti im- 

 plies other males than this abortion, or rather 

 implies none at all. I therefore eliminate 

 him as an accident of no value and conclude 

 that, in the Cylindrical Ilalictus, the July gen- 

 eration consists of females only. 



The building-operations start again in the 

 second week of July. The galleries arc re- 

 stored and lengthened; new cells are fashioned 

 and the old ones repaired. Follow the pro- 

 visioning, the laying of the eggs, the closing 

 of the cells; and, before July is over, there is 

 solitude again. Let me also say that, during 

 the building-period, not a male appears in 

 sight, a fact which adds further proof to that 

 already supplied by my excavations. 



437 



