horned; the Dasypodae, who carry an ample brush of bristles
on their hind-legs for a reaping implement; the Andrenae, so manyfold
in species; the slender-bellied Halicti. (Osmiae, Macrocerae, Eucerae,
Dasypodae, Andrenae, and Halicti are all different species of Wild
Bees.--Translator's Note.) I omit a host of others. If I tried to
continue this record of the guests of my thistles, it would muster
almost the whole of the honey-yielding tribe. A learned entomologist of
Bordeaux, Professor Perez, to whom I submit the naming of my prizes,
once asked me if I had any special means of hunting, to send him so
many rarities and even novelties. I am not at all an experienced and
still less a zealous hunter, for the insect interests me much more when
engaged in its work than when stuck on a pin in a cabinet. The whole
secret of my hunting is reduced to my dense nursery of thistles and
centauries.

By a most fortunate chance, with this populous family of
honey-gatherers was allied the whole hunting tribe. The builders' men
had distributed here and there, in the harmas, great mounds of sand and
heaps of stones, with a view of running up some surrounding walls. The
work dragged on slowly; and the materials found occupants from the
first year. The Mason-bees had chosen the interstices between the
stones as a dormitory where to pass the night in serried groups. The
powerful Eyed Lizard, who, when close-pressed, attacks wide-mouthed
both man and dog, had selected a cave wherein to lie in wait for the
passing Scarab (A Dung-beetle known also as the Sacred
Beetle.--Translator's Note.); the Black-eared Chat, garbed like a
Dominican, white-frocked with black wings, sat on the top stone,
singing his short rustic lay: his nest, with its sky-blue eggs, must be
somewhere in the heap. The little Dominican disappeared with the loads
of stones. I regret him: he would have been a charming neighbour. The
Eyed Lizard I do not regret at all.

The sand sheltered a different colony. Here, the Bembeces (A species of
Digger-wasps.--Translator's Note.) were sweeping the threshold of their
burrows, flinging a curve of dust behind them; the Languedocian Sphex
was dragging her Ephippigera (A species of Green
Grasshopper--Translator's Note.) by the antennae; a Stizus (A species
of Hunting-wasp.--Translator's Note.) was storing her preserves of
Cicadellae. (Froghoppers--Translator's Note.) To my sorrow, the masons
ended by evicting the sporting tribe; but,