These anomalies call for more conclusive proofs than the rough deductions drawn from the nature of the horny ovipositor. We must ascertain in a direct fashion whether the cell into which the auger has been driven several times over actually contains several occupants in addition to the larva of the Mason-bee. When the Leucopses had finished their borings, I waited a few days longer so as to give the young grubs time to develop a little, which would make my examination easier. I then moved the tiles to the table in my study, in order to investigate their secrets with the most scrupulous care. And here such a disappointment as I have rarely known awaited me. The cells which I had seen, actually seen, with my own eyes, pierced by the probe two or three or even four times, contained but one Leucopsis-grub, one alone, eating away at its Chalicodoma. Others, which had also been repeatedly probed, contained spoilt remnants, but never a Leucopsis. O holy patience, give me the courage to begin again! Dispel the darkness and deliver me from doubt! I begin again. The Leucopsis-grub is familiar to me; I can recognize it, without the possibility of a mistake, in the nests of both the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles and the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. All through the winter, I rush about, getting my nests from the roofs of old sheds and the pebbles of the waste-lands; I stuff my pockets with them, fill my box, load Favier's knapsack; I collect enough to litter all the tables in my study; and, when it is too cold out of doors, when the biting mistral blows, I tear open the fine silk of the cocoons to discover the inhabitant. Most of them contain the Mason in the perfect state; others give me the larva of the Anthrax; others--very numerous, these--give me the larva of the Leucopsis. And this last is alone, always alone, invariably alone. The whole thing is utterly incomprehensible when one knows, as I know, how many times the probe entered those cells. My perplexity only increases when, on the return of summer, I witness for the second time the Leucopsis' repeated operations on the same cells and for the second time find a single larva in the compartments which have been bored several times over. Shall I then be forced to accept that the auger is able to recognize the cells already containing an egg and that it thenceforth refrains from laying there? Must I admit an extraordinary sense of touch in that bit of horse-hair, or even better, a sort of divination which declares where the egg lies without having to touch it? But I am raving! There is certainly something that escapes me; and the obscurity of the problem is simply due to my incomplete information. O patience, supreme virtue of the observer, come to my aid once more! I must begin all over again for the third time.