The next day, when sunshine recalled the scattered workers, I again counted the bees with white dots on their thorax. My success surpassed all my hopes; I counted fifteen—fifteen of the deported bees storing or building as if nothing had happened! Then the storm, which had threatened more and more, burst, and a succession of rainy days stopped all further observations. Such as it was, the experiment sufficed. Out of twenty bees which seemed fit for the journey when released, fifteen at least had come back—two in the first hour, and three in the course of the evening, and the rest next morning. They had come back in spite of having the wind against them, and—a yet greater difficulty—in spite of their unfamiliarity with the place whither I had transported them. There could be no question that it was for the first time that they saw the osier beds of the Aygues which I had chosen as the starting-place. Never on their own account had they gone so far afield, for they find all they want by way of building material and food close to my shed. The road at the foot of the wall furnishes mortar; the meadows round my house offer nectar and pollen. Economical of time as they are, they would not fly four kilometres to procure what abounds close to the nests. I see them daily taking material from the road, and making a harvest on the meadow flowers, especially on Salvia. According to all appearance they do not fly beyond a circle of a hundred metres. How then did my exiles return? What guided them? Not memory, certainly, but some special faculty, which we can only recognise by its astonishing effects without pretending to explain it, so far outside our own psychology is it. XXII AN EXCHANGE OF NESTS Let us continue our series of experiments on Chalicodoma muraria. From its position on a stone which one can move at will, its nest lends itself to very interesting trials. This is the first of them. I change the place of a nest by carrying the pebble it is placed on some couple of yards away. Edifice and base forming but one, the move was made without at all disturbing the cells. I set the pebble in an open place well in sight, as it was before. When the bee returned, she could not fail to see it.