is not peculiar to the land of Etna, as her name might suggest, but is
also found in Greece, in Algeria and in the south of France,
particularly in the department of Vaucluse, where she is one of the
commonest Bees to be seen in the month of May. In the first species
the two sexes are so unlike in colouring that a novice, surprised at
observing them come out of the same nest, would at first take them for
strangers to each other. The female is of a splendid velvety black,
with dark-violet wings. In the male, the black velvet is replaced by a
rather bright brick-red fleece. The second species, which is much
smaller, does not show this contrast of colour: the two sexes wear the
same costume, a general mixture of brown, red and grey, while the tips
of the wings, washed with violet on a bronzed ground, recall, but only
faintly, the rich purple of the first species. Both begin their
labours at the same period, in the early part of May.

As Reaumur tells us, the Chalicodoma of the Walls in the northern
provinces selects a wall directly facing the sun and one not covered
with plaster, which might come off and imperil the future of the
cells. She confides her buildings only to solid foundations, such as
bare stones. I find her equally prudent in the south; but, for some
reason which I do not know, she here generally prefers some other base
to the stone of a wall. A rounded pebble, often hardly larger than
one's fist, one of those cobbles with which the waters of the glacial
period covered the terraces of the Rhone Valley, forms the most
popular support. The extreme abundance of these sites might easily
influence the Bee's choice: all our less elevated uplands, all our
arid, thyme-clad grounds are nothing but water-worn stones cemented
with red earth. In the valleys, the Chalicodoma has also the pebbles
of the mountain-streams at her disposal. Near Orange, for instance,
her favourite spots are the alluvia of the Aygues, with their carpets