Note 2 — Chapter VII · THE SCHOOLMASTER: CARPENTRAS

I inquired; and everything was explained. A born searcher and observer, the scholar had long known what the master had not yet heard of, namely, that there was a big black Bee who made clay nests on the pebbles of the harmas. These nests contained honey; and my surveyors used to open them and empty the cells with a straw. The honey, although rather strong-flavoured, was most acceptable. I acquired a taste for it myself and joined the nest-hunters, putting off the polygon till later. It was thus that I first saw Réaumur’s Mason Bee,2 knowing nothing of her history and nothing of her historian.