five o'clock, the arrivals number seven of the pink Mason-bees, whom
I thought that I had bewildered by a long and circuitous drive, and six
of the blue Mason-bees, who came to Font-Claire by the direct route. The
two proportions, forty-six and forty per cent., are almost equal; and
the slight excess in favour of the insects that went the roundabout
way is evidently an accidental result which we need not take into
consideration. The bend described cannot have helped them to find their
way home; but it has also certainly not hampered them.

There is no need of further proof. The intricate movements of a rotation
such as I have described; the obstacle of hills and woods; the pitfalls
of a road which moves on, moves back and returns after making a wide
circuit: none of these is able to disconcert the Chalicodomae or prevent
them from going back to the nest.

I had written to Charles Darwin telling him of my first, negative
results, those obtained by swinging the Bees in a box. He expected
a success and was much surprised at the failure. Had he had time to
experiment with his Pigeons, they would have behaved just like my Bees;
the preliminary twirling would not have affected them. The problem
called for another method; and what he proposed was this:

'To place the insect within an induction coil, so as to disturb any
magnetic or diamagnetic sensibility which it seems just possible that
they may possess.'

To treat an insect as you would a magnetic needle and to subject it to
the current from an induction coil in order to disturb its magnetism or
diamagnetism appeared to me, I must confess, a curious notion, worthy
of an imagination in the last ditch. I have but little confidence in our
physics, when they pretend to explain life; nevertheless, my respect for
the great man would have made me resort to the induction-coils, if I had
possessed the necessary apparatus. But my village boasts no scientific
resources: if I want an electric spark, I am reduced to rubbing a sheet
of paper on my knees. My physics cupboard contains a magnet; and that is
about all. When this penury was realised, another method was suggested,
simpler than the first and more certain in its results, as Darwin
himself considered:

'To make a very thin needle into a magnet; then breaking it into very
short pieces, which would still be magnetic, and fastening one of these
pieces with some cement on the thorax of the insects to be experimented
on. I belie