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PGCC Collection: the Mason-Bees, by J. Henri Fabre PGCC Collection: The Mason-Bees, by J. Henri Fabre #2 in our series by J. Henri Fabre. World eBook Library PGCC Collection Bringing the world's eBook Collection Together http://www.WorldLibrary.net Project Gutenberg Consortia Center is a member of the World eBook Library Consortia, http://WorldLibrary.net __________________________________________________ Limitations By accessing this file you agree to all the Terms and Conditions, as stated here. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Here are 3 of the more major items to consider: 1. The eBooks on the PG sites are NOT 100% public domain, some of them are copyrighted and used by permission and thus you may charge for redistribution only via direct permission from the copyright holders. 2. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark [TM]. For any other purpose than to redistribute eBooks containing the entire Project Gutenberg file free of charge and with the headers intact, permission is required. 3. The public domain status is per U.S. copyright law. This eBook is from the Project Gutenberg Consortium Center of the United States. 1 The mission of the Project Gutenberg Consortia Center is to provide a similar framework for the collection of eBook collections as does Project Gutenberg for single eBooks, operating under the practices, and general guidelines of Project Gutenberg. The major additional function of Project Gutenberg Consortia Center is to manage the addition of large collections of eBooks from other eBook creation and collection centers around the world. The complete license details are online at: http://gutenberg.net/license __________________________________________________ Title: The Mason-bees Author: J. Henri Fabre Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos Release Date: October, 2001 [eBook #2884] PGCC Collection: The Mason-bees by J. Henri Fabre 2 eBook file: msnbs10.pdf or msnbs10.htm** Corrected EDITIONS, msnbs11.pdf Separate source VERSION, msnbs10a.pdf eBook prepared by Sue Asscher [email protected] eBook prepared by Sue Asscher [email protected] THE MASON-BEES by J. HENRI FABRE TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS, F.Z.S. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. 3 This volume contains all the essays on the Chalicodomae, or Mason-bees proper, which so greatly enhance the interest of the early volumes of the "Souvenirs entomologiques." I have also included an essay on the author's Cats and one on Red Ants--the only study of Ants comprised in the "Souvenirs"--both of which bear upon the sense of direction possessed by the Bees. Those treating of the Osmiae, who are also Mason-Bees, although not usually known by that name, will be found in a separate volume, which I have called "Bramble-bees and Others" and in which I have collected all that Fabre has written on such other Wild Bees as the Megachiles, or Leaf-cutters, the Cotton-bees, the Resin-bees and the Halicti. The essays entitled "The Mason-bees, Experiments" and "Exchanging the Nests" form the last three chapters of "Insect Life", translated by the author of "Mademoiselle Mori" and published by Messrs. Macmillan, who, with the greatest courtesy and kindness have given me their permission to include a new translation of these chapters in the present volume. They did so without fee or consideration of any kind, merely on my representation that it would be a great pity if this uniform edition of Fabre's Works should be rendered incomplete because certain essays formed part of volumes of extracts previously published in this country. Their generosity is almost unparalleled in my experience; and I wish to thank them publicly for it in the name of the author, of the French publishers and of the English and American publishers, as well as in my own. 4 Some of the chapters have appeared in England in the "Daily Mail", the "Fortnightly Review" and the "English Review"; some in America in "Good Housekeeping" and the "Youth's Companion"; others now see the light in English for the first time. I have again to thank Miss Frances Rodwell for the invaluable assistance which she has given me in the work of translation and in the less interesting and more tedious department of research. ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS. Chelsea, 1914. CONTENTS. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. CHAPTER 1. THE MASON-BEES. CHAPTER 2. EXPERIMENTS. CHAPTER 3. EXCHANGING THE NESTS. 5 CHAPTER 4. MORE ENQUIRIES INTO MASON-BEES. CHAPTER 5. THE STORY OF MY CATS. CHAPTER 6. THE RED ANTS. CHAPTER 7. SOME REFLECTIONS UPON INSECT PSYCHOLOGY. CHAPTER 8. PARASITES. CHAPTER 9. THE THEORY OF PARASITISM. CHAPTER 10. THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE MASON-BEE. CHAPTER 11. THE LEUCOPSES. INDEX. CHAPTER 1. THE MASON-BEES. Reaumur (Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire naturelle des insectes."--Translator's Note.) devoted one 6 of his papers to the story of the Chalicodoma of the Walls, whom he calls the Mason-bee. I propose to go on with the story, to complete it and especially to consider it from a point of view wholly neglected by that eminent observer. And, first of all, I am tempted to tell how I made this Bee's acquaintance. It was when I first began to teach, about 1843. I had left the normal school at Vaucluse some months before, with my diploma and all the simple enthusiasm of my eighteen years, and had been sent to Carpentras, there to manage the primary school attached to the college. It was a strange school, upon my word, notwithstanding its pompous title of 'upper'; a sort of huge cellar oozing with the perpetual damp engendered by a well backing on it in the street outside. For light there was the open door, when the weather permitted, and a narrow prison-window, with iron bars and lozenge panes set in lead. By way of benches there was a plank fastened to the wall all round the room, while in the middle was a chair bereft of its straw, a black-board and a stick of chalk. Morning and evening, at the sound of the bell, there came rushing in some fifty young imps who, having shown themselves hopeless dunces with their Cornelius Nepos, had been relegated, in the phrase of the day, to 'a few good years of French.' Those who had found mensa too much for them came to me to get a smattering of grammar. Children and strapping lads were there, mixed up together, at very different educational stages, but all incorrigibly agreed to play tricks upon the master, the boy master who was no older than some of them, or even 7 younger. To the little ones I gave their first lessons in reading; the intermediate ones I showed how they should hold their pen to write a few lines of dictation on their knees; to the big ones I revealed the secrets of fractions and even the mysteries of Euclid. And to keep this restless crowd in order, to give each mind work in accordance with its strength, to keep attention aroused and lastly to expel dullness from the gloomy room, whose walls dripped melancholy even more than dampness, my one resource was my tongue, my one weapon my stick of chalk. For that matter, there was the same contempt in the other classes for all that was not Latin or Greek. One instance will be enough to show how things then stood with the teaching of physics, the science which occupies so large a place to-day. The principal of the college was a first-rate man, the worthy Abbe X., who, not caring to dispense beans and bacon himself, had left the commissariat-department to a relative and had undertaken to teach the boys physics. Let us attend one of his lessons. The subject is the barometer. The establishment happens to possess one, an old apparatus, covered with dust, hanging on the wall beyond the reach of profane hands and bearing on its face, in large letters, the words stormy, rain, fair. 'The barometer,' says the good abbe, addressing his pupils, whom, in 8 patriarchal fashion, he calls by their Christian names, 'the barometer tells us if the weather will be good or bad. You see the words written on the face--stormy, rain--do you see, Bastien?' 'Yes, I see,' says Bastien, the most mischievous of the lot. He has been looking through his book and knows more about the barometer than his teacher does. 'It consists,' the abbe continues, 'of a bent glass tube filled with mercury, which rises and falls according to the weather. The shorter leg of this tube is open; the other...the other...well, we'll see. Here, Bastien, you're the tallest, get up on the chair and just feel with your finger if the long leg is open or closed. I can't remember for certain.' Bastien climbs on the chair, stands as high as he can on tip-toe and fumbles with his finger at the top of the long column. Then, with a discreet smile spreading under the silky hairs of his dawning moustache: 'Yes,' he says, 'that's it. The long leg is open at the top. There, I can feel the hole.' And Bastien, to confirm his mendacious statement, keeps wriggling his forefinger at the top of the tube, while his fellow-conspirators suppress their enjoyment as best they can. 9 'That will do,' says the unconscious abbe.
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