United States or Mayotte ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I should like to picture the Halictus gaining wisdom from the misfortunes of the spring and capable thenceforth of looking out for danger; I would gladly credit her with having learnt in the stern school of experience the advantages of a patrol. I must give up the idea.
What do they gain by their mustering? With them it is not a defensive system, a concerted effort to ward off the common foe. The Halictus does not care about her neighbour's affairs. She does not visit another's burrow; she does not allow others to visit hers. She has her tribulations, which she endures alone; she is indifferent to the tribulations of her kind.
We do not succeed in finding one single nymph of the Halictus. The whole of the populous city has perished; and its place has been taken by the Gnat. There is a glut of that individual's pupae. I collect them in order to trace their evolution. The year runs its course; and the little russet kegs, into which the original maggots have hardened and contracted, remain stationary.
Ask of the Halictus, which, no longer capable of becoming a mother, makes herself guardian of a city, in order still to labour within the measure of her means. Ask of the Osmia, the Megachile, the Anthidium, which "with no maternal aim, for the sole joy of labour, strive to expend their forces in the accomplishment of their vain tasks, until the forces of life fail."
The Halictus' spring family acquire the adult form in a couple of months or so; they leave the cells about the end of June. What goes on inside these neophytes as they cross the threshold of the burrow for the first time? Something, apparently, that may be compared with our own impressions of childhood. An exact and indelible image is stamped on their virgin memories.
All that the Halictus mother asks is that the passage should be easy to go up and down, to ascend or descend in a hurry. And so she leaves it rugged. Its width is about that of a thick lead-pencil. Arranged one by one, horizontally and at different heights, the cells occupy the basement of the house. They are oval cavities, three-quarters of an inch long, dug out of the clay mass.
Again, M. Paul Marchal, taking up the study of instinct in the Cerceris ornata, has shown that in this species at least of Sphegidæ the stings have not so considerable an effect. This insect attacks a wild bee, the Halictus.
The curious larvæ of the Oil beetle may be found abundantly on the bodies of various species of Bombus, Andrena and Halictus, with their heads plunged in between the segments of the bee's body. The beautiful moth, Adela, with its immensely long antennæ, may be seen, with other smaller moths, feeding on the blossoms of the willow.
By the time that the first cold weather comes, in November, complete solitude reigns over the burrows. I once more have recourse to the spade. I find none but females in their cells. There is not one male left. All have vanished, all are dead, the victims of their life of pleasure and of the wind and rain. Thus ends the cycle of the year for the Cylindrical Halictus.
With the high temperature of this time of the year, the development of the larvae makes rapid progress: a month is sufficient for the various stages of the metamorphosis. On the 24th of August there are once more signs of life above the burrows of the Cylindrical Halictus, but under very different conditions. For the first time, both sexes are present.
Word Of The Day