Note 4 — Chapter VII · INSTINCT AND DISCERNMENT

I collect during the winter about two dozen well-stocked Snail-shells and install them in a quiet corner of my study, as I did at the time of my enquiries into the distribution of the sexes.4 The little hive with its front pierced with forty holes has bits of reed fitted to it. At the foot of the five rows of cylinders I place the inhabited shells and with these I mix a few small stones, the better to imitate the natural conditions. I add an assortment of empty Snail-shells, after carefully cleaning the interior so as to make the Osmia’s stay more pleasant. When the time comes for nest-building, the stay-at-home insect will have, close beside the house of its birth, a choice of two habitations: the cylinder, a novelty unknown to its race; and the spiral staircase, the ancient ancestral home.