for the most part, circle several times around me and then dart off
impetuously in the direction of Serignan, as far as I can judge. It is
not easy to watch them, because they fly off suddenly, after going two
or three times round my body, a suspicious-looking object which they
wish, apparently, to reconnoitre before starting. A quarter of an hour
later, my eldest daughter, Antonia, who is on the look-out beside the
nests, sees the first traveller arrive. On my return, in the course of
the evening, two others come back. Total: three home on the same day,
out of ten scattered abroad.

I resume the experiment next morning. I mark ten Mason-bees with red,
which will enable me to distinguish them from those who returned on
the day before and from those who may still return with the white spot
uneffaced. The same precautions, the same rotations, the same
localities as on the first occasion; only, I make no rotation on the
way, confining myself to swinging my box round on leaving and on
arriving. The insects are released at a quarter past eleven. I
preferred the forenoon, as this was the busiest time at the works. One
Bee was seen by Antonia to be back at the nest by twenty minutes past
eleven. Supposing her to be the first let loose, it took her just five
minutes to cover the distance. But there is nothing to tell me that it
is not another, in which case she needed less. It is the fastest speed
that I have succeeded in noting. I myself am back at twelve and,
within a short time, catch three others. I see no more during the rest
of the evening. Total: four home, out of ten.

The 4th of May is a very bright, calm, warm day, weather highly
propitious for my experiments. I take 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