are not too much dilapidated. In the early stages of
the work, neighbours compete for these with an eagerness which shows
the value attached to them. Face to face, at times with their mandibles
interlocked, now both rising into the air, now coming down again, then
touching ground and rolling over each other, next flying up again, for
hours on end they will wage battle for the property at issue.

A ready-made nest, a family heirloom which needs but a little restoring,
is a precious thing for the Mason, ever sparing of her time. We find so
many of the old homes repaired and restocked that I suspect the Bee of
laying new foundations only when there are no secondhand nests to be
had. To have the chambers of a dome occupied by a stranger therefore
means a serious privation.

Now several Bees, however industrious in gathering honey, building
party-walls and contriving receptacles for provisions, are less clever
at preparing the resorts in which the cells are to be stacked. The
abandoned chambers of the Chalicodoma, now larger than they were
originally, through the addition of the hall of exit, are first-rate
acquisitions for them. The great thing is to occupy these chambers
first, for here possession is nine parts of the law. Once established,
the Mason is not disturbed in her home, while she, in her turn, does not
disturb the stranger who has settled down before her in an old nest,
the patrimony of her family. The disinherited one leaves the Bohemian to
enjoy the ruined manor in peace and goes to another pebble to establish
herself at fresh expense.

In the first rank of these free tenants, I will place an Osmia (Osmia
cyanoxantha, PEREZ) and a Megachile, or Leaf-cutting Bee (Megachile
apicalis, SPIN.) (Cf. "Bramble-dwellers and Others": chapter
8.--Translator's Note.), both of whom work in May, at the same time as
the Mason, while both are small enough to lodge from five to eight
cells in a single chamber of the Chalicodoma, a chamber increased by
the addition of an outer hall. The Osmia subdivides this space into
very irregular compartments by means of slanting, upright or curved
partitions, subject to the dictates of space. There is no art,
consequently, in the accumulation of little cells; the architect's
only task is to use the breadth at her disposal in a frugal manner. The
material employed for the partitions is a green, vegetable putty, which
the Osmia must obtain by chewing the shredded leaves of a plant whose
n