However, the proprietor seemed to draw redoubled courage and strength from consciousness of her [[299]]rights. She encamped permanently on the nest and received the other bee each time that she ventured to approach with an irritated quiver of the wings in token of just indignation. The stranger finally withdrew discouraged, and instantly the mason resumed work as actively as if she had not undergone the chances and changes of a long journey.
Yet another word as to rights of property. While a mason bee is absent it is not unusual for some homeless vagabond to visit the nest, take a liking to it, and set to work, sometimes at the same cell, sometimes at the next, if there are several free, as often happens with old nests. When the first occupant returns she does not fail to drive away the intruder, who always ends by getting the worst of it, so lively and invincible is the real owner’s sense of property. Reversing the savage Prussian maxim, “Strength before right,” here right comes before strength; otherwise the constant retreat of the intruder would be quite inexplicable, since the latter’s strength is in no way inferior to that of the real owner. If she has less audacity it must come from not feeling braced by the sovereign strength of being right, which decides among equals, even in the brute creation.
The second of my two travellers did not appear, either on the day when the first came, nor later. I decided to make another experiment—this time with five subjects. Place of starting and arrival, distance and hours, were the same. I found three at the nests on the following day; two were missing.
It is therefore quite clear that Chalicodoma [[300]]muraria carried away four kilometres, and, set free where she certainly could never have been before, can return home. But why did one out of two, and two out of five, fail to do so? What one could do, why not another? Are they not equally gifted with the faculty which guides them through the unknown? Is it not rather inequality in the power of flight? I recollected that my Hymenoptera did not all fly off with the same energy; hardly were some out of my fingers, launching themselves impetuously into the air, than I lost sight of them, while others let themselves drop a few paces off after a short flight. It seems certain that these had suffered during the journey—perhaps from the concentrated heat in the furnace of my box, or I may have harmed the jointure of the wings while marking them—an operation difficult to perform when one has to avoid being stung. These are maimed, weak creatures—unable to go on with all sail spread, as they ought, for this journey. The experiment must be tried again, only counting those bees which instantly leave my fingers with a swift, strong flight. We shall omit those which hesitate or linger close by on some bush. Moreover, I will do my best to compute the time employed in returning to the nest.
Such an experiment requires a considerable number of subjects, as the weak and maimed, who may be many, must be rejected. Chalicodoma muraria cannot furnish the quantity needed; it is not common enough, and I am anxious not to disturb the small people by the Aigues whom I want for other observations later. Fortunately I have near my house, under the projecting edge of the roof of a shed, a magnificent [[301]]colony of Chalicodoma sicula in full activity. I can draw at pleasure on the populous city. The insect is small—less than half the size of C. muraria; no matter—all the more merit if it can traverse the four kilometres which I have in reserve for it, and find its nest. I took forty, isolating them as usual in paper cones.
A ladder was placed against the wall in order to reach the nest; it was to be used by my daughter Aglaë, to allow her to mark the exact instant when the first one returned. I set the clock on the mantelpiece and my watch together, that I might compare the moment of departure and arrival. Then I carried off my forty captives to the spot where Chalicodoma muraria works beside the Aygues. The expedition had a double scope—to observe Réaumur’s mason bee and set the Sicilian one free. The latter would have to fly back four kilometres.
At length my prisoners were released—all marked with a large white dot in the middle of the thorax. It is not for nothing that one successively handles forty wrathful Hymenoptera which forthwith unsheath and make play with their poisoned stings. Before the mark could be made, too often the stab was given, and my burning fingers moved in self-defence sometimes against my will; I handled them with more consideration for myself than for the insect, and sometimes squeezed my bees too hard. To experiment in order to lift a small corner of the veil that covers a truth is a beautiful and noble thing, which can enable one to brave many perils, yet surely one may show a little impatience if in a brief space of time one’s finger tips get stung forty times. [[302]]If any one should reproach me for my clumsy handling, I would suggest that he make the experiment, and then judge how far the situation was pleasant.
In short, either from the fatigue of the journey, or because I pressed too hard and injured some articulations, out of my forty Hymenoptera only twenty flew off strongly and unhesitatingly; the rest strayed over the herbage near at hand, unable to keep their balance, or remained on the willows where I had put them, refusing to fly even when excited by a straw. These faint-hearted ones, these maimed ones, these incapables hurt by my fingers, must be struck off the list. Twenty started with an unhesitating flight. That was amply sufficient.
At the moment of departure there was nothing special in the direction taken—nothing of that straight line to the nest which the Cerceris took in a like case. As soon as they were free the Chalicodoma fled scared—one in this direction, one to a completely opposite point; but, as far as their fiery flight allowed, I think I saw a rapid return of those bees which had flown in the wrong direction for their nests, and most seemed to go to that side of the horizon. I leave this point with the doubts unavoidable with regard to insects lost sight of at some twenty metres distance. So far the experiment had been favoured by calm weather, but now things grew complicated. The heat was stifling, and the sky grew stormy. Rather a strong wind rose, blowing from the south—the very direction which my bees should take to return home. Could they overcome this contrary current and cleave this aerial torrent [[303]]with their wings? If they try it they must keep close to the ground, as I saw those Hymenoptera doing which continued to work, but it appeared out of the question to soar into the high regions where they might obtain a clear acquaintance with the surrounding country. It was therefore with great apprehension as to the success of my experiment that I returned to Orange after again trying to learn some secret from the bees on the Aygues pebbles.
Hardly had I entered my house when I saw Aglaë, flushed with excitement. “Two,” she cried—“two came at twenty minutes to three, all laden with pollen!” A friend chanced to have come in—a grave legal personage, who, hearing what was on hand, forgot the Code and stamped paper, and insisted on also watching for the arrival of my homing pigeons. The result interested him more than did the lawsuit about the partition wall. In a Senegalian sun and furnace heat reflected from the wall, every five minutes did he mount the ladder bareheaded, with no other protection against sunstroke than his thick, gray locks. Instead of the single watcher whom I had posted I found two good pairs of eyes watching the bees’ return. I had freed them about two o’clock, and the first two returned to the nest at twenty minutes to three, so that three-quarters of an hour had sufficed for travelling four kilometres,—a very striking result, especially if we remember that the bees worked on the road, as was proved by the pollen on their bodies, and besides they must have been hindered by having the wind against them. Two more came back under my eyes, and they had signs of having worked on the way by their load of [[304]]pollen. As it was growing late, observations could not be continued. When the sun goes down the mason bees leave the nest and take refuge I know not where—here and there—perhaps under roof tiles and in little shelters in walls. I could not count on the arrival of the others until work was resumed in full sunshine.