direct road, the one that runs through Piolenc. He brought with him
fifteen Mason-bees, intended for purposes of comparison with mine. I
am therefore in possession of two sets of insects. Fifteen, marked in
pink, have taken the five-mile bend; fifteen, marked in blue, have
come by the straight road, the shortest road for returning to the
nest. The weather is warm, exceedingly bright and very calm; I could
not hope for a better day for my experiment. The insects are given
their freedom at mid-day.

At five o'clock, the arrivals number seven of the pink Mason-bees,
whom I thought that I had bewildered by a long and circuitous drive,
and six of the blue Mason-bees, who came to Font-Claire by the direct
route. The two proportions, forty-six and forty per cent., are almost
equal; and the slight excess in favour of the insects that went the
roundabout way is evidently an accidental result which we need not
take into consideration. The bend described cannot have helped them to
find their way home; but it has also certainly not hampered them.

There is no need of further proof. The intricate movements of a
rotation such as I have described; the obstacle of hills and woods;
the pitfalls of a road which moves on, moves back and returns after
making a wide circuit: none of these is able to disconcert the
Chalicodomae or prevent them from going back to the nest.

I had written to Charles Darwin telling him of my first, negative
results, those obtained by swinging the Bees in a box. He expected a
success and was much surprised at the failure. Had he had time to
experiment with his Pigeons, they would have behaved just like my
Bees; the preliminary twirling would not have affected them. The
problem called for another method; and what he proposed was this: