As a dwelling of this sort could show us nothing new, I chose for my swarm the Garden Snail (Helix caespitum), whose shell, shaped like a small, swollen Ammonite, widens by slow degrees, the diameter of the usable portion, right up to the mouth, being hardly greater than that required by a male Osmia-cocoon. Moreover, the widest part, in which a female might find room, has to receive a thick stopping-plug, below which there will often be a free space. Under all these conditions, the house will hardly suit any but males arranged one after the other. The collection of shells placed at the foot of each hive includes specimens of different sizes. The smallest are 18 millimetres (.7 inch.--Translator's Note.) in diameter and the largest 24 millimetres (.936 inch.--Translator's Note.) There is room for two cocoons, or three at most, according to their dimensions. Now these shells were used by my visitors without any hesitation, perhaps even with more eagerness than the glass tubes, whose slippery sides might easily be a little annoying to the Bee. Some of them were occupied on the first few days of the laying; and the Osmia who had started with a home of this sort would pass next to a second Snail-shell, in the immediate neighbourhood of the first, to a third, a fourth and others still, always close to one another, until her ovaries were emptied. The whole family of one mother would thus be lodged in Snail-shells which were duly marked with the date of the laying and a description of the worker. The faithful adherents of the Snail-shell were in the minority. The greater number left the tubes to come to the shells and then went back from the shells to the tubes. All, after filling the spiral staircase with two or three cells, closed the house with a thick earthen stopper on a level with the opening. It was a long and troublesome task, in which the Osmia displayed all her patience as a mother and all her talents as a plasterer. There were even some who, scrupulous to excess, carefully cemented the umbilicus, a hole which seemed to inspire them with distrust as being able to give access to the interior of the dwelling. It was a dangerous-looking cavity, which for the greater safety of the family it was prudent to block up. When the pupae are sufficiently matured, I proceed to examine these elegant abodes. The contents fill me with joy: they fulfil my anticipations to the letter. The great, the very great majority of the cocoons turn out to be males; here and there, in the bigger cells, a few rare females appear. The smallness of the space has almost done away with the sixty-eight Snail-shells colonized. But, of this total number, I must use only those series which received an entire laying and were occupied by the same Osmia from the beginning to the end of the egg-season. Here are a few examples, taken from among the most conclusive.