Note 1 — Chapter IV · THE AGENIÆ; THE PELOPÆUS’ VICTUALS

Despite their inner glaze, the Agenia’s cells are too readily affected by water and moreover too fragile to remain exposed to the open air with impunity. They need a shelter quite as badly as those of the Pelopæus. This shelter is found in all manner of places, excepting our houses, where the frail potter very rarely takes refuge. A tiny cavity under the stump of a tree; a hole in some wall or other, exposed to the sun; an old Snail-shell under a heap of stones; a Capricorn’s disused burrow bored in the oak; an Anthophora’s1 deserted dwelling; a fat Earth-worm’s mine-shaft opening on a dry bank; the hole whence the Cicada2 has emerged: anything, in short, suits her, provided that the accommodation be sheltered from the rain. Once only did Agenia punctum, who is more frequent than the other, pay me a visit. She had established her collection of pots in some little paper bags lying on the shelves of a green-house and intended to hold seeds. This nest-building on a sheet of paper reminded me of the Pelopæus confiding her cells to the books in a distillery or the curtains of a window. Indifferent to the nature of the support for their nests, both potters sometimes choose very curious sites.