stormy season approaches
and fewer females remain to be wooed. By the time that the first cold
weather comes, in November, complete solitude reigns over the burrows.
I once more have recourse to the spade. I find none but females in their
cells. There is not one male left. All have vanished, all are dead, the
victims of their life of pleasure and of the wind and rain. Thus ends
the cycle of the year for the Cylindrical Halictus.

In February, after a hard winter, when the snow had lain on the ground
for a fortnight, I wanted once more to look into the matter of my
Halicti. I was in bed with pneumonia and at the point of death, to all
appearances. I had little or no pain, thank God, but extreme difficulty
in living. With the little lucidity left to me, being able to do no
other sort of observing, I observed myself dying; I watched with a
certain interest the gradual falling to pieces of my poor machinery.
Were it not for the terror of leaving my family, who were still young, I
would gladly have departed. The after-life must have so many higher and
fairer truths to teach us.

My hour had not yet come. When the little lamps of thought began to
emerge, all flickering, from the dusk of unconsciousness, I wished to
take leave of the Hymenopteron, my fondest joy, and first of all of my
neighbour, the Halictus. My son Emile took the spade and went and dug
the frozen ground. Not a male was found, of course; but there were
plenty of females, numbed with the cold in their cells.

A few were brought for me to see. Their little chambers showed no
efflorescence of rime, with which all the surrounding earth was coated.
The waterproof varnish had been wonderfully efficacious. As for the
anchorites, roused from their torpor by the warmth of the room, they
began to wander about my bed, where I followed them vaguely with my
fading eyes.

May came, as eagerly awaited by the sick man as by the Halicti. I left
Orange for Serignan, my last stage, I expect. While I was moving, the
Bees resumed their building. I gave them a regretful glance, for I had
still much to learn in their company. I have never since met with such a
mighty colony.

These old observations on the habits of the Cylindrical Halictus may now
be followed by a general summary which will incorporate the recent data
supplied by the Zebra Halictus and the Early Halictus.

The females of the Cylindrical Halictus whom I unearth from November
onwards are evidently fecundated,