m. Hail to you, O my dear Osmiae, who yearly,
from the far end of the harmas (The piece of waste ground in which the
author studied his insects in their natural state. Cf. "The Life of
the Fly" by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos:
chapter 1.--Translator's Note.), opposite snow-capped Ventoux (A
mountain in the Provencal Alps, near Carpentras and Serignan, 6,271
feet.--Translator's Note.), bring me the first tidings of the awakening
of the insect world! I am one of your friends; let us talk about you a
little.

Most of the Osmiae of my region have none of the industry of their
kinswomen of the brambles, that is to say, they do not themselves
prepare the dwelling destined for the laying. They want ready-made
lodgings, such as the old cells and old galleries of Anthophorae and
Chalicodomae. If these favourite haunts are lacking, then a hiding-place
in the wall, a round hole in some bit of wood, the tube of a reed, the
spiral of a dead Snail under a heap of stones are adopted, according to
the tastes of the several species. The retreat selected is divided into
chambers by partition-walls, after which the entrance to the dwelling
receives a massive seal. That is the sum-total of the building done.

For this plasterer's rather than mason's work, the Horned and the
Three-horned Osmia employ soft earth. This material is different from
the Mason-bee's cement, which will withstand wind and weather for many
years on an exposed pebble; it is a sort of dried mud, which turns
to pap on the addition of a drop of water. The Mason-bee gathers her
cementing-dust in the most frequented and driest portions of the road;
she wets it with a saliva which, in drying, gives it the consistency of
stone. The two Osmiae who are the almond-tree's early visitors are
no chemists: they know nothing of the making and mixing of hydraulic
mortar; they limit themselves to gathering natural soaked earth, mud in
short, which they allow to dry without any special preparation on their
part; and so they need deep and well-sheltered retreats, into which the
rain cannot penetrate, or the work would fall to pieces.

While exploiting, in friendly rivalry with the Three-horned Osmia, the
galleries which the Mason-bee of the Sheds good-naturedly surrenders to
both, Latreille's Osmia uses different materials for her partitions and
her doors. She chews the leaves of some mucilaginous plant, some mallow
perhaps, and then prepares a sort of gr