The Anthrax of the Chalicodoma labors under very different
conditions. Stay-at-home habits would be detrimental to her. With
her rushing flight, made easy by the long and powerful spread of
her wings, she must travel far and wide if she would found a
colony. The bee's nests are not discovered in groups, but occur
singly on their pebbles, scattered more or less everywhere over
acres of ground. To find a single one is not enough for the fly:
on account of the many parasites, not all the cells, by a long way,
contain the desired larva; others, too well protected, would not
allow of access to the provisions. Very many nests are necessary,
perhaps, for the eggs of one alone; and the finding of them calls
for long journeys.

I therefore picture the Anthrax coming and going in every direction
across the stony plain. Her practiced eye requires no slackened
flight to distinguish the earthen dome which she is seeking.
Having found it, she inspects it from above, still on the wing; she
taps it once and yet once again with the tip of her ovipositor and
forthwith makes off, without having set foot on the ground. Should
she take a rest, it will be elsewhere, no matter where, on the
soil, on a stone, on a tuft of lavender or thyme. Given these
habits--and my observations in the Carpentras roads make them seem
exceedingly probable--it is small wonder that the perspicacity of
my young shepherds and myself should have come to naught. I was
expecting the impossible: the Anthrax does not halt on the mason
bee's nest to proceed with her laying in a methodical fashion; she
merely pays a flying visit.

And so I develop my theory of a primary larval form, differing in
every way from the one which I know. The organization of the