fifty Chalicodomae marked with
blue. The distance to be travelled remains the same. I make the first
rotation after carrying my insects a few hundred steps in the direction
opposite to that which I finally take; in addition, three rotations on
the road; a fifth rotation at the place where they are set free. If
they do not lose their bearings this time, it will not be for lack
of twisting and turning. I begin to open my screws of paper at twenty
minutes past nine. It is rather early, for which reason my Bees, on
recovering their liberty, remain for a moment undecided and lazy; but,
after a short sunbath on a stone where I place them, they take wing. I
am sitting on the ground, facing the south, with Serignan on my left
and Piolenc on my right. When the flight is not too swift to allow me to
perceive the direction taken, I see my released captives disappear to my
left. A few, but only a few, go south; two or three go west, or to right
of me. I do not speak of the north, against which I act as a screen. All
told, the great majority take the left, that is to say, the direction
of the nest. The last is released at twenty minutes to ten. One of the
fifty travellers has lost her mark in the paper bag. I deduct her from
the total, leaving forty-nine.

According to Antonia, who watches the home-coming, the earliest arrivals
appeared at twenty-five minutes to ten, say fifteen minutes after the
first was set free. By twelve o'clock mid-day, there are eleven back;
and, by four o'clock in the evening, seventeen. That ends the census.
Total: seventeen, out of forty-nine.

I resolved upon a fourth experiment, on the 14th of May. The weather
is glorious, with a light northerly breeze. I take twenty Mason-bees,
marked in pink, at eight o'clock in the morning. Rotations at the start,
after a preliminary backing in a direction opposite to that which I
intend to take; two rotations on the road; a fourth on arriving. All
those whose flight I am able to follow with my eyes turn to my left,
that is to say, towards Serignan. Yet I had taken care to leave the
choice free between the two opposite directions: in particular, I had
sent away my Dog, who was on my right. To-day, the Bees do not circle
round me: some fly away at once; the others, the greater number, feeling
giddy perhaps after the pitching of the journey and the rolling of the
sling, alight on the ground a few yards away, seem to wait until they
are somewhat recovered and then fly o