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For the first time I witness a custom which no Hymenopteron had yet shown me: I see the males haunting the interior of the burrows with an assiduity equalling that of the mothers employed in nest-building. The cause of these unwonted operations soon stands revealed.

Reader, do not smile: this is a most serious matter, well worthy of our consideration. To devote our attention to animals is to plunge at once into the vexed question of who we are and whence we come. What, then, passes in that little Hymenopteron brain? Has it faculties akin to ours, has it the power of thought?

I had not the patience to follow those dull-witted marauders to the end. Let us repeat the experiment, but place the Amazon to the north. After more or less prolonged hesitations, after a search now in this direction, now in that, the Ant succeeds in finding her column. She knows the locality. Here, of a surety, is a Hymenopteron deprived of that sense of direction which other Hymenoptera enjoy.

Its nipple shape and the bits of gravel wherewith it bristles all over the outside remind one of certain cromlechs of olden time, of certain tumuli whose domes are strewn with Cyclopean stones. Such is the appearance of the edifice when the cell stands alone; but the Hymenopteron nearly always fixes other domes against her first, to the number of five, six, or more.

Hymonoptera, large size of the cerebral ganglia in; classification of; sexual differences in the wings of; aculeate, relative size of the sexes of. Hymenopteron, parasitic, with a sedentary male. Hyomoschus aquaticus. Hyperythra, proportion of the sexes in. Hypogymna dispar, sexual difference of colour in. Hypopyra, coloration of. Ibex, male, falling on his horns; beard of the.

The Processionaries, with their unsophisticated traffic-laws, are very different from the Mason-bees and others, who have a special sense to guide them. The Amazon, though belonging to the Hymenopteron clan, herself possesses rather limited homing-faculties, as witness her compulsory return by her former trail.

When the little lamps of thought began to emerge, all flickering, from the dusk of unconsciousness, I wished to take leave of the Hymenopteron, my fondest joy, and first of all of my neighbour, the Halictus. My son Emile took the spade and went and dug the frozen ground. Not a male was found, of course; but there were plenty of females, numbed with the cold in their cells.

I am too familiar with the amorous contests of the Hymenopteron clan to allow myself to be mistaken. It is the rule for the males, who are the earlier of the two, to keep a close guard around the natal spot and watch for the emergence of the females, whom they pester with their pursuit the moment they reach the light of day. This is the motive of the interminable ballet of my Scoliae.

How much more comprehensible and interesting their life would become! But "when the hymenopteron breaks its cocoon, where are its masters! Its predecessors have long ago disappeared. How then can it receive education by example?" Let us return to Fabre's laboratory, to the covers of wire-gauze, and note what becomes, at the approach of winter, of the survivors of the vespine city.

The mandibles, now free, would remove the beam; the pellet would be taken up again at once; and everything would go to perfection. But no: the insect has its mortar and, come what may, employs it on the work for which it was intended. If any one sees a rudiment of reason in this Hymenopteron intelligence, he has eyes that are more penetrating than mine.