the same vigour. Some were hardly out of my fingers
before they darted furiously into the air, where I at once lost sight
of them, whereas the others came dropping down a few yards away from me,
after a short flight. The latter, it seems certain, must have suffered
on the journey, perhaps from the heat concentrated in the furnace of my
box. Or I may have hurt the articulation of the wings in marking them,
an operation difficult to perform when you are guarding against
stings. These are maimed, feeble creatures, who will linger in the
sainfoin-fields close by, and not the powerful aviators required by the
journey.

The experiment must be tried again, taking count only of the Bees
who start off straight from between my fingers with a clean, vigorous
flight. The waverers, the laggards who stop almost at once on some
bush shall be left out of the reckoning. Moreover, I will do my best to
estimate the time taken in returning to the nest. For an experiment of
this kind, I need plenty of subjects, as the weak and the maimed, of
whom there may be many, are to be disregarded. The Mason-bee of the
Walls is unable to supply me with the requisite number: there are not
enough of her; and I am anxious not to interfere too much with the
little Aygues-side colony, for whom I have other experiments in view.
Fortunately, I have at my own place, under the eaves of a shed, a
magnificent nest of Chalicodoma sicula in full activity. I can draw to
whatever extent I please on the populous city. The insect is small, less
than half the size of C. muraria, but no matter: it will deserve all the
more credit if it can traverse the two miles and a half in store for it
and find its way back to the nest. I take forty Bees, isolating them, as
usual, in screws of paper.

In order to reach the nest, I place a ladder against the wall: it will
be used by my daughter Aglae and will enable her to mark the exact
moment of the return of the first Bee. I set the clock on the
mantelpiece and my watch at the same time, so that we may compare the
instant of departure and of arrival. Things being thus arranged, I carry
off my forty captives and go to the identical spot where C. muraria
works, in the pebbly bed of the Aygues. The trip will have a double
object: to observe Reaumur's Mason and to set the Sicilian Mason at
liberty. The latter, therefore, will also have two and a half miles to
travel home.

At last my prisoners are released, all of them being first m