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By what sense then can they distinguish the thorax of an Anthophora from a velvety pellet, when sight and touch are out of the question? The sense of smell remains. But in that case what exquisite subtlety must we not take for granted?

The Anthophora digs corridors and cells in the road-side banks hardened by the sun; she does not erect, she excavates; she does not build, she clears. Toiling away with her mandibles, atom by atom, she manages to contrive the passages and chambers necessary for her eggs; and a huge business it is. She has, in addition, to polish and glaze the rough sides of her tunnels.

The two-roomed dwelling is closed, in the passage, by a shapeless, bulky mass of dried mud. What a clumsy artist the Osmia is, compared with the Anthophora! Against the exquisite work of the Anthophora, partition and plug strike a note as hideously incongruous as a lump of dirt on polished marble. The two apartments thus obtained are of a very unequal capacity, which at once strikes the observer.

Never did experiment break down so completely! Larvæ, nymphs, cells, honey: I have offered you them all! Then what do you want, you fiendish little creatures? Tired of all these fruitless attempts, I ended where I ought to have begun: I went to Carpentras. But it was too late: the Anthophora had finished her work; and I did not succeed in seeing anything new.

Wherever in Provence there is a perpendicular wall, natural or artificial, a little cliff, a sloping ditch, or the wall of one of those caves which the people of the country use for putting their tools in, the Anthophora hollows out galleries, at the bottom of which he builds a certain number of chambers.

We must obviously employ honey prepared by the same species of Anthophora as that at whose cost the Sitares live. But this Bee is not very common in the neighbourhood of Avignon; and my engagements at the college do not allow me to absent myself for the purpose of repairing to Carpentras, where she is so abundant.

They vegetate in this condition for a long time, and may still be found there in May. At this period they have become more active, and, in order to complete their development, are thinking of profiting by their favourable situation near the entrance to a gallery of the Hymenoptera; when a male Anthophora comes within reach, two or three of them catch hold of him and climb on to his thorax.

At Avignon, where I have not yet seen Sitaris humeralis, the same species of Anthophora, observed at almost the same season, while pillaging the lilac-blossom, was always free of young Sitaris-grubs; at Carpentras, on the contrary, where there is not a single Anthophora-colony without Sitares, nearly three-quarters of the specimens which I examined carried a few of these larvæ in their fleece.

The first, Anthrax sinuata, FALLEN, lives in the cocoons of Osmia tricornis, who herself builds her nest in the old galleries of the hairy-footed Anthophora; the second, Anthrax trifasciata, MEIGEN, exploits the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. I will consult both. Once more, here am I, somewhat late in life, at Carpentras, whose rude Gallic name sets the fool smiling and the scholar thinking.

During this time the parasite larva hastily descends the abdominal hairs and allows itself to fall on the egg of the Anthophora, to be then borne upon it as upon a raft; its fall must take place at the precise instant which will enable it to embark without falling into the honey, in which just now it would be glued fast, and perish.