about half-way up, above the honey.
The Bee brings provisions for some time longer and then lays her egg.
Through my big window, I see the egg deposited on the victuals. The
insect next works at the cover, to which it gives the finishing touches
with a series of little taps, administered with infinite care, while the
breach remains yawning. On the lid, it scrupulously stops up every pore
that could admit so much as an atom; but it leaves the great opening
that places the house at the mercy of the first-comer. It goes to that
breach repeatedly, puts in its head, examines it, explores it with its
antennae, nibbles the edges of it. And that is all. The mutilated cell
shall stay as it is, with never a dab of mortar. The threatened part
dates too far back for the Bee to think of troubling about it.

I have said enough, I think, to show the insect's mental incapacity in
the presence of the accidental. This incapacity is confirmed by renewing
the test, an essential condition of all good experiments; therefore
my notes are full of examples similar to the one which I have just
described. To relate them would be mere repetition; I pass them over for
the sake of brevity.

The renewal of a test is not sufficient: we must also vary our test. Let
us, then, examine the insect's intelligence from another point of view,
that of the introduction of foreign bodies into the cell. The Mason-bee
is a housekeeper of scrupulous cleanliness, as indeed are all the
Hymenoptera. Not a spot of dirt is suffered in her honey-pot; not a
grain of dust is permitted on the surface of her mixture. And yet, while
the jar is open, the precious Bee-bread is exposed to accidents. The
workers in the cells above may inadvertently drop a little mortar into
the lower cells; the owner herself, when working at enlarging the jar,
runs the risk of letting a speck of cement fall into the provisions.
A Gnat, attracted by the smell, may come and be caught in the honey;
brawls between neighbours who are getting into each other's way may
send some dust flying thither. All this refuse has to disappear and that
quickly, lest afterwards the larva should find coarse fare under its
delicate mandibles. Therefore the Mason-bees must be able to cleanse the
cell of any foreign body. And, in point of fact, they are well able to
do so.

I place on the surface of the honey five or six bits of straw
a millimetre in length. (.039 inch.--Translator's Note.) Great
astonishment on the