,.429,.312,.312,.273,.273,.273,.234,.234,.234, .273
inch.--Translator's Note.)

When the diameter of the tunnel is less, the partitions can be still
further apart, though they retain the general characteristic of being
closer to one another the nearer they are to the orifice. A reed of five
millimetres (.195 inch.--Translator's Note.) in diameter, gives me the
following distances, always starting from the bottom:

22, 22, 20, 20, 12, 14. (.858,.858,.78,.78,.468,.546 inch.--Translator's
Note.)

Another, of 9 millimetres (.351 inch.--Translator's Note.), gives me:

15, 14, 11, 10, 10, 9, 10. (.585,.546,.429,.39,.39,.351,.39
inch.--Translator's Note.)

A glass tube of 8 millimetres (.312 inch.--Translator's Note.) yields:

15, 14, 20, 10, 10, 10. (.585,.546,.78,.39,.39,.39 inch.--Translator's
Note.).

I could fill pages and pages with such figures, if I cared to print all
my notes. Do they prove that the Osmia is a geometrician, employing a
strict measure based on the length of her body? Certainly not, because
many of those figures exceed the length of the insect; because sometimes
a higher number follows suddenly upon a lower; because the same string
contains a figure of one value and another figure of but half that
value. They prove only one thing: the marked tendency of the insect to
shorten the distance between the party-walls as the work proceeds. We
shall see later that the large cells are destined for the females and
the small ones for the males.

Is there not at least a measuring adapted to each sex? Again, not so;
for in the first series, where the females are housed, instead of the
interval of 11 millimetres, which occurs at the beginning and the end,
we find, in the middle of the series, an interval of 16 millimetres,
while in the second series, reserved for the males, instead of the
interval of 7 millimetres at the beginning and the end, we have an
interval of 5 millimetres in the middle. It is the same with the other
series, each of which shows a striking discrepancy in its figures. If
the Osmia really studied the dimensions of her chambers and measured
them with the compasses of her body, how could she, with her delicate
mechanism, fail to notice mistakes of 5 millimetres, almost half her own
length?

Besides, all idea of geometry vanishes if we consider the work in a tube
of moderate width. Here, the Osmia does not fix the front partition in
advance; she does not even lay its foundation. Without a