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To see it thus diminished, we are surprised at its tenacious vitality, which enables it to reach the adult form in spite of the extreme deficiency of food. Meanwhile, this adult is still the Dioxys; there is no change of any kind in her shape or colouring. Moreover, the two sexes are represented; this family of pigmies has its males and females.
The chamber is inaccessible to the Dioxys from the first touch of the trowel. Hence it is absolutely necessary for her to see to her egg before the Mason-bee of the Sheds has disposed of hers and no less necessary to conceal it from the Mason's watchful eye. The difficulties are not so great in the nests of the Mason-bee of the Pebbles.
An infinitesimal creature, a barely-visible grub, with the swaddling-clothes of its egg still clinging to it, is led by instinct, at its first inspiration, to exterminate whatever is in its way. So the Mason's egg is exterminated. Was it really necessary in the Dioxys' interest? Not in the least.
I suspect, without having yet verified my suspicion and I reproach myself for the neglect I suspect that the egg is buried in the heap of pollen-dust. When I see the Dioxys come out of a cell with her mouth all over yellow flour, perhaps she has been surveying the ground and preparing a hiding-place for her egg. What I take for a mere tasting might well be a more serious act.
In those aerial nests, swinging at the end of a twig, not a Dioxys, a Stelis, an Anthrax, a Leucopsis, those dread ravagers of the other two Masons; never any Osmiae, Megachiles or Anthidia, those lodgers in the old buildings. The absence of the latter is easily explained. The Chalicodoma's masonry does not last long on its frail support.
But to so many deeds of darkness I would not like to add another by an oversight; and I prefer to admit that I failed to perceive the grub that died of hunger. Let us now show up the Dioxys.
The Osmia, in fact, in view of her small dimensions, collects but a very scanty store of food: a little loaf of pollen and honey, hardly the size of an average pea. Such a ration is insufficient for the Dioxys. I have described her as a waster of food when her larva is established, according to custom, in the cell of the Mason-bee. This description no longer applies; not in the very least.
I can see nothing to account for the absence or at least the extreme rareness of usurpers of provisions and consumers of grubs, both of whom are very indifferent to the new or old conditions of the nest, so long as the cells are well stocked. Can it be that the lofty position of the edifice and the shaky support of the twig arouse distrust in the Dioxys and other malefactors?
In vain have I opened nests at every season; I have never found a vestige of the egg nor of the grub of either Chalicodoma. The Dioxys, whether as a larva on the honey, or enclosed in its cocoon, or as the perfect insect, was always alone. The rival had disappeared without a trace.
Hunger excuses many things; for lack of food, the survivors on the raft of the Medusa indulged in a little cannibalism; but here there is enough food and to spare. When there is more than she needs, what earthly motive impels the Dioxys to destroy a rival in the germ stage?