d thorax appear outside; the abdomen
remains held in the gallery.

The glass cell, with its lack of supports at the side, has certainly
perplexed my subject, which does not seem to have made use of all its
methods. The hole through the sorghum is wide and irregular; it is
a clumsy breach and not a gallery. When made through the mason bee's
walls, it is cylindrical, fairly neat and exactly of the animal's
diameter. So I hope that, under natural conditions, the pupa does not
give quite so many blows with the pickaxe and prefers to work with the
drill.

Narrowness and evenness in the exit tunnel are necessary to it. It
always remains half caught in it and even pretty securely fixed by the
graters on its back. Only the head and thorax emerge into the outer air.
This is a last precaution for the final deliverance. A fixed support is,
in fact, indispensable to the Anthrax for issuing from her horny sheath,
unfurling her great wings and extricating her slender legs from their
scabbards. All this very delicate work would be endangered by any lack
of steadiness.

The pupa, therefore, remains fixed by the graters of its back in the
narrow exit gallery and thus supplies the stable equilibrium essential
to the new birth. All is ready. It is time now for the great act. A
transversal cleft makes its appearance on the forehead, at the bottom
of the perforating diadem; a second, but longitudinal slit divides the
skull in two and extends down the thorax. Through this cross-shaped
opening, the Anthrax suddenly appears, all moist with the humors of
life's laboratory. She steadies herself upon her trembling legs, dries
her wings and takes to flight, leaving at the window of the cell
her nymphal slough, which keeps intact for a very long period. The
sand-colored fly has five or six weeks before her, wherein to explore
the clay nests amid the thyme and to take her small share of the joys
of life. In July, we shall see her once more, busy this time with the
entrance into the cell, which is even stranger than the exit.

CHAPTER III. ANOTHER PROBER (PERFORATOR)

What can he be called, this creature whose style and title I dare not
inscribe at the head of the chapter? His name is Monodontomerus cupreus,
SM. Just try it, for fun: Mo-no-don-to-me-rus. What a gorgeous mouthful!
What an idea it gives one of some beast of the Apocalypse! We think,
when we pronounce the word, of the prehistoric monsters: the mastodon,
the mammoth, the pond