t let her have her way, being
doubtless too busy with their present labours to seek a quarrel with the
freebooter. As soon as she had destroyed the lid, the Bee, with a sort
of feverish haste that burned to repay theft by theft, did a little
building, did a little victualling, as though to resume the thread of
her occupations, destroyed the egg in being, laid her own and closed
the cell again. Here was a touch of nature that deserved careful
examination.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, when the work is at its height, I mark
half-a-score of Chalicodomae with different colours, to distinguish them
from one another. Some are occupied with building, others are disgorging
honey. I mark the corresponding cells in the same way. As soon as the
marks are quite dry, I catch the ten Bees, place them singly in screws
of paper and shut them all in a box until the next morning. After
twenty-four hours' captivity, the prisoners are released. During
their absence, their cells have disappeared under a layer of recent
structures; or, if still exposed to view, they are closed and others
have made use of them.

As soon as they are free, the ten Bees, with one exception, return to
their respective tiles. They do more than this, so accurate is their
memory, despite the confusion resulting from a prolonged incarceration:
they return to the cell which they have built, the beloved stolen cell;
they minutely explore the outside of it, or at least what lies nearest
to it, if the cell has disappeared under the new structures. In cases
where the home is not henceforward inaccessible, it is at least occupied
by a strange egg and the door is securely fastened. To this reverse of
fortune the ousted ones retort with the brutal lex talionis: an egg for
an egg, a cell for a cell. You've stolen my house; I'll steal yours.
And, without much hesitation, they proceed to force the lid of a cell
that suits them. Sometimes they recover possession of their own home, if
it is possible to get into it; sometimes and more frequently they
seize upon some one else's, even at a considerable distance from their
original dwelling.

Patiently they gnaw the mortar lid. As the general rough-cast covering
all the cells is not applied until the end of the work, all that they
need do is to demolish the lid, a hard and wearisome task, but not
beyond the strength of their mandibles. They therefore attack the door,
the cement disk, and reduce it to dust. The criminal is all