reed represent the cells of the nest. The cocoons are introduced with
the insect's head turned towards the opening. Lastly, my artificial
cells are closed in different ways. Some receive a stopper of kneaded
clay, which, when dry, will correspond in thickness and consistency
with the mortar ceiling of the natural nest. Others are plugged with a
cylinder of sorghum, at least a centimetre (.39 inch--Translator's
Note.) thick; and the remainder with a disk of brown paper solidly
fastened by the edge. All these bits of reed are placed side by side
in a box, standing upright, with the roof of my making at the top. The
insects, therefore, are in the exact position which they occupied in
the nest. To open a passage, they must do what they would have done
without my interference, they must break through the wall situated
above their heads. I shelter the whole under a wide bell-glass and
wait for the month of May, the period of the deliverance.

The results far exceed my anticipations. The clay stopper, the work of
my fingers, is perforated with a round hole, differing in no wise from
that which the Mason-bee contrives through her native mortar dome. The
vegetable barrier, new to my prisoners, namely, the sorghum cylinder,
also opens with a neat orifice, which might have been the work of a
punch. Lastly, the brown-paper cover allows the Bee to make her exit
not by bursting through, by making a violent rent, but once more by a
clearly defined round hole. My Bees therefore are capable of a task
for which they were not born; to come out of their reed cells they do
what probably none of their race did before them; they perforate the
wall of sorghum-pith, they make a hole in the paper barrier, just as
they would have pierced their natural clay ceiling. When the moment
comes to free themselves, the nature of the impediment does not stop
them, provided that it be not beyond their strength; and henceforth
the argument of incapacity cannot be raised when a mere paper barrier