MASON BEES

Too Long; Didn't Read

Réaumur has dedicated one of his studies to the Chalicodoma of walls, which he calls the Mason Bee. I propose to resume this study, to complete it, and especially to consider it from a point of view entirely neglected by that illustrious observer. And first of all I am tempted to state how I made acquaintance with this Hymenopteron. It was when I first began to teach—towards a.d. 1843. On leaving the Normal School of Vaucluse a few months previously, with my certificate, and the naïve enthusiasm of eighteen, I was sent to Carpentras to manage the primary school belonging to the college. A singular school it was, upon my word, notwithstanding its fine title of “Upper”!—a kind of vast cellar breathing out the damp engendered by a fountain backing on it in the street. Light came in through a door opening outward when the weather allowed of it, and a narrow prison-window, with iron-bars, and little diamond panes set in lead. For seats there was a plank fastened to the walls all round the room; in the middle was a chair guiltless of straw, a blackboard, and a bit of chalk.