ny boundary-pad,
with no guiding mark for the capacity of the cell, she busies herself
straightway with the provisioning. When the heap of Bee-bread is judged
sufficient, that is, I imagine, when her tired body tells her that she
has done enough harvesting, she closes up the chamber. In this case,
there is no measuring; and yet the capacity of the cell and the quantity
of the victuals fulfil the regular requirements of one or the other sex.

Then what does the Osmia do when she repeatedly stops to touch the
front partition with her forehead and the back partition, the one in the
course of building, with the tip of her abdomen? I have no idea what
she does or what she has in view. I leave the interpretation of this
performance to others, more venturesome than I. Plenty of theories are
based on equally shaky foundations. Blow on them and they sink into the
quagmire of oblivion.

The laying is finished, or perhaps the cylinder is full. A final
partition closes the last cell. A rampart is now built, at the orifice
of the tube itself, to forbid the ill-disposed all access to the home.
This is a thick plug, a massy work of fortification, whereon the Osmia
spends enough mortar to partition off any number of cells. A whole day
is not too long for making this barricade, especially in view of the
minute finishing-touches, when the Osmia fills up with putty every chink
through which the least atom could slip. The mason completing a wall
smooths his plaster and brings it to a fine surface while it is still
wet; the Osmia does the same, or almost. With little taps of the
mandibles and a continual shaking of her head, a sign of her zest for
the work, she smooths and polishes the surface of the lid for hours at a
time. After such pains, what foe could visit the dwelling?

And yet there is one, an Anthrax, A. sinuata (Cf. "The Life of the Fly":
chapters 2 and 4.--Translator's Note.), who will come later on, in the
height of summer, and succeed, invisible bit of thread that she is, in
making her way to the grub through the thickness of the door and the web
of the cocoon. In many cells, mischief of another kind has already been
done. During the progress of the works, an impudent Midge, one of the
Tachina-flies, who feeds her family on the victuals amassed by the Bee,
hovers in front of the galleries. Does she penetrate to the cells and
lay her eggs there in the mother's absence? I could never catch the
sneak in the act. Does she, like