Meanwhile, she inspects the workyard, moves freely among the ranks of the Masons and bides her time. If the owner be absent, I see her diving into a cell, coming out again a moment later with her mouth smeared with pollen. She has been to try the provisions. A dainty connoisseur, she goes from one store to another, taking a mouthful of honey. Is it a tithe for her personal maintenance, or a sample tested for the benefit of her coming grub? I should not like to say. What I do know is that, after a certain number of these tastings, I catch her stopping in a cell, with her abdomen at the bottom and her head at the orifice. This is the moment of laying, unless I am much mistaken. When the parasite is gone, I inspect the home. I see nothing abnormal on the surface of the mass. The sharper eye of the owner, when she gets back, sees nothing either, for she continues the victualling without betraying the least uneasiness. A strange egg, laid on the provisions, would not escape her. I know how clean she keeps her warehouse; I know how scrupulously she casts out anything introduced by my agency: an egg that is not hers, a bit of straw, a grain of dust. So, according to my evidence and that of the Chalicodoma, which is more conclusive, the Dioxys's egg, if it is really laid then, is not placed on the surface. I suspect, without having yet verified my suspicion--and I reproach myself for the neglect--I suspect that the egg is buried in the heap of pollen-dust. When I see the Dioxys come out of a cell with her mouth all over yellow flour, perhaps she has been surveying the ground and preparing a hiding-place for her egg. What I take for a mere tasting might well be a more serious act. Thus concealed, the egg escapes the eagle eye of the Bee, whereas, if left uncovered, it would inevitably perish, would be flung on the rubbish heap at once by the owner of the nest. When the Spotted Sapyga lays her egg on that of the Bramble-dwelling Osmia, she does the deed under cover of darkness, in the gloom of a deep well to which not the least ray of light can penetrate; and the mother, returning with her pellet of green putty to build the closing partition, does not see the usurping germ and is ignorant of the danger. But here everything happens in broad daylight; and this demands more cunning in the method of installation.