sumptuousness of the fare provided. My notes mention fifty-four
larvae in the cell of a masked Anthophora (Anthophora personata).
No other census attained this figure. Possibly, two different
mothers had laid their eggs in this crowded habitation. With the
Mason bee of the Walls, I see the number of larvae vary, in
different cells, between four and twenty-six; with the mason bee of
the Sheds, between five and thirty-six; with the three-horned
Osmia, who supplied me with the largest number of records, between
seven and twenty-five; with the blue Osmia (Osmia cyanea, KIRB.),
between five and six; with the Stelis (Stelis nasuta), between four
and twelve.

The first return and the last two seem to point to some relation
between the abundance of provisions and the number of consumers.
When the mother comes upon the bountiful larva of the masked
Anthophora, she gives it half-a-hundred to feed; with the Stelis
and the blue Osmia, niggardly rations both, she contents herself
with half-a-dozen. To introduce into the dining room only the
number of boarders that the bill of fare will allow would certainly
be a most deserving performance, especially as the insect is placed
under very difficult conditions to judge the contents of the cell.
These contents, which lie hidden under the ceiling, are invisible;
and the insect can derive its information only from the outside of
the nest, which varies in the different species. We should
therefore have to admit the existence of a particular power of
discrimination, a sort of discernment of the
species, which is recognized as large or small from the outward
aspect of its house. I refuse to go to this length in my
conjectures, not that instinct seems to me incapable of such feats,
but because of the particulars obtained from the three-horned Osmia