In such work it is hardly possible to wear gloves. The fingers require all their dexterity to seize the mason bee with sufficient delicacy, and to master her struggles without rough pressure. It is evident that if nothing else be gained, one is sure of stings; with a little address they can generally be avoided, but not always; one must take them with resignation. Besides, a mason bee’s sting is by no means so painful as that of a hive bee. The white spot dropped on the thorax—off goes the mason bee, and the mark dries as she goes. The first time I tried the experiment I took two mason bees busy at their nests on the boulders covering the alluvial lands along the Aygues, not far from Serignan, and carried them to my home at Orange, where I freed them after marking each. According to the Ordnance map the distance between the two places is about four kilometres in a right line. The captives were freed in the evening at an hour when bees begin to leave off work, so it was likely that my two would spend the night somewhere near. The next morning I returned to the nests. It was still too cold, and work was suspended. When the dew was dried the masons set to work. I saw a bee, but without the white spot, taking pollen to one of the two nests whence had come the travellers whom I expected. A stranger, having found the cell unoccupied, and having expatriated the owner, had established herself there, unaware that it was the property of another. Perhaps she had been storing it since the previous evening. Towards ten o’clock, at the hottest time, suddenly the proprietor arrived. Her rights as first occupier were inscribed as far as I was concerned in irrefutable characters in white chalk on her thorax. Here was one of my travellers come back. Over waves of corn, over fields of red sainfoin, she had accomplished the four kilometres, and returned to her nest after collecting booty on the way, for she came,—worthy creature that she was!—all yellow underneath with pollen. To return from the verge of the horizon was a marvel, but to do so with a well-furnished pollen brush was really sublime economy! A journey, even if compulsory, is always for a bee an opportunity of collecting food. She found the stranger in her nest. “What’s all this? You just wait!” and fell furiously on the other, who perhaps had thought no wrong. Then there were hot pursuits through the air. From time to time the two hovered almost motionless, facing one another with a couple of inches between them, doubtless measuring each other with their eyes, and humming abuse at one another. Sometimes one, sometimes the other alighted on the nest in question. I expected to see a wrestle, and stings used; but I was mistaken. The duties of maternity spoke too imperiously to allow them to risk life, and wipe out the injury in a mortal duel. All was limited to hostile demonstrations and a few tussles leading to nothing.