the soil, on a stone, on a tuft
of lavender or thyme. Given these habits--and my observations in the
Carpentras roads make them seem exceedingly probable--it is small wonder
that the perspicacity of my young shepherds and myself should have come
to naught. I was expecting the impossible: the Anthrax does not halt on
the mason bee's nest to proceed with her laying in a methodical fashion;
she merely pays a flying visit.

And so I develop my theory of a primary larval form, differing in every
way from the one which I know. The organization of the Anthrax must be
such, at the beginning, as to permit of its moving on the surface of the
dome where the egg has been dropped so carelessly; the nascent grub must
be supplied with tools to pierce the concrete wall and enter the Bee's
cell through some cranny. The fly grub, perhaps dragging the remnants of
the egg behind it, must set out in quest of board and lodging almost as
soon as it is born. It will succeed under the guidance of instinct, that
faculty which waits not to number the days and which is as far seeing at
the moment of hatching as after the trials of a busy life. This primary
grub does not seem to me outside the limits of possibility; I see it, if
not in the body, at least in its actions, as plainly as though it were
really under the lens. It exists, if reason be not a vain and empty
guide; I must find it; I shall find it. Never in the history of my
investigations has the logic of things been more insistent; never has
it directed me with greater certainty towards a magnificent biological
theory.

While vainly trying to witness the laying of the eggs, I inquire, at the
same time, into the contents of the Mason bee's nests, in quest of
the grub just issued from the egg. My own harvest and that of my young
shepherds, whose zeal I employ in a task less difficult than the first,
procure me heaps of nests, enough to fill baskets and baskets. These are
all inspected at leisure, on my work table, with the excitement which
the certainty of an approaching fine discovery never fails to give. The
Mason's cocoons are taken from the cells, inspected without, opened and
inspected within. My lens explores their innermost recesses; speck by
speck, it explores the Chalicodoma's slumbering larva; it explores the
inner walls of the cells. Nothing, nothing, nothing! For a fortnight
and more, nests were rejected and heaped up in a corner; my study was
crammed with them. What hecatombs of