ths. Well, during the six years that I have studied
this question, I have seen and seen again, ad nauseam; and I am in a
position to declare that there is no order governing the sequence of
hatchings, absolutely none. The first cocoon to burst may be the one at
the bottom of the tube, the one at the top, the one in the middle or
in any other part, indifferently. The second to be split may adjoin the
first or it may be removed from it by a number of spaces, either above
or below. Sometimes several hatchings occur on the same day, within the
same hour, some farther back in the row of cells, some farther forward;
and this without any apparent reason for the simultaneity. In short, the
hatchings follow upon one another, I will not say haphazard--for each
of them has its appointed place in time, determined by impenetrable
causes--but at any rate contrary to our calculations, based on this or
the other consideration.

Had we not been deceived by our too shallow logic, we might have
foreseen this result. The eggs are laid in their respective cells at
intervals of a few days, of a few hours. How can this slight difference
in age affect the total evolution, which lasts a year? Mathematical
accuracy has nothing to do with the case. Each germ, each grub has its
individual energy, determined we know not how and varying in each germ
or grub. This excess of vitality belongs to the egg before it leaves the
ovary. Might it not, at the moment of hatching, be the cause why this
or that larva takes precedence of its elders or its juniors, chronology
being altogether a secondary consideration? When the hen sits upon her
eggs, is the oldest always the first to hatch? In the same way, the
oldest larva, lodged in the bottom storey, need not necessarily reach
the perfect state first.

A second argument, had we reflected more deeply on the matter, would
have shaken our faith in any strict mathematical sequence. The same
brood forming the string of cocoons in a bramble-stem contains
both males and females; and the two sexes are divided in the series
indiscriminately. Now it is the rule among the Bees for the males to
issue from the cocoon a little earlier than the females. In the case
of the Three-pronged Osmia, the male has about a week's start.
Consequently, in a populous gallery, there is always a certain number
of males, who are hatched seven or eight days before the females and who
are distributed here and there over the series. This would