ain stretched far and wide, covered with nothing but flowering
thyme and rounded pebbles. There was ample scope for every imaginable
polygon; trapezes and triangles could be combined in all sorts of ways.
The inaccessible distances had ample elbow-room; and there was even
an old ruin, once a pigeon-house, that lent its perpendicular to the
graphometer's performances.

Well, from the very first day, my attention was attracted by something
suspicious. If I sent one of the boys to plant a stake, I would see him
stop frequently on his way, bend down, stand up again, look about and
stoop once more, neglecting his straight line and his signals. Another,
who was told to pick up the arrows, would forget the iron pin and take
up a pebble instead; and a third deaf to the measurements of angles,
would crumble a clod of earth between his fingers. Most of them were
caught licking a bit of straw. The polygon came to a full stop, the
diagonals suffered. What could the mystery be?

I enquired; and everything was explained. A born searcher and observer,
the scholar had long known what the master had not yet heard of, namely,
that there was a big black Bee who made clay nests on the pebbles in the
harmas. These nests contained honey; and my surveyors used to open
them and empty the cells with a straw. The honey, although rather
strong-flavoured, was most acceptable. I acquired a taste for it myself
and joined the nest-hunters, putting off the polygon till later. It
was thus that I first saw Reaumur's Mason-bee, knowing nothing of her
history and nothing of her historian.

The magnificent Bee herself, with her dark-violet wings and black-velvet
raiment, her rustic edifices on the sun-blistered pebbles amid the
thyme, her honey, providing a diversion from the severities of the
compass and the square, all made a great impression on my mind; and I
wanted to know more than I had learnt from the schoolboys, which was
just how to rob the cells of their honey with a straw. As it happened,
my bookseller had a gorgeous work on insects for sale. It was called
"Histoire naturelle des animaux articules", by de Castelnau (Francis
Comte de Castelnau de la Porte (1812-1880), the naturalist
and traveller. Castelnau was born in London and died at
Melbourne.--Translator's Note.), E. Blanchard (Emile Blanchard (born
1820), author of various works on insects, Spiders, etc.--Translator's
Note.) and Lucas (Pierre Hippolyte Lucas (born 1815), author of works