第96章 THE HALICTI: PARTHENOGENESIS.(5)

The same mode of life is continued throughout October, but the males become less numerous from day to day as the stormy season approaches and fewer females remain to be wooed. By the time that the first cold weather comes, in November, complete solitude reigns over the burrows. I once more have recourse to the spade. I find none but females in their cells. There is not one male left. All have vanished, all are dead, the victims of their life of pleasure and of the wind and rain. Thus ends the cycle of the year for the Cylindrical Halictus.

In February, after a hard winter, when the snow had lain on the ground for a fortnight, I wanted once more to look into the matter of my Halicti. I was in bed with pneumonia and at the point of death, to all appearances. I had little or no pain, thank God, but extreme difficulty in living. With the little lucidity left to me, being able to do no other sort of observing, I observed myself dying; I watched with a certain interest the gradual falling to pieces of my poor machinery. Were it not for the terror of leaving my family, who were still young, I would gladly have departed. The after-life must have so many higher and fairer truths to teach us.

My hour had not yet come. When the little lamps of thought began to emerge, all flickering, from the dusk of unconsciousness, I wished to take leave of the Hymenopteron, my fondest joy, and first of all of my neighbour, the Halictus. My son Emile took the spade and went and dug the frozen ground. Not a male was found, of course; but there were plenty of females, numbed with the cold in their cells.

A few were brought for me to see. Their little chambers showed no efflorescence of rime, with which all the surrounding earth was coated. The waterproof varnish had been wonderfully efficacious. As for the anchorites, roused from their torpor by the warmth of the room, they began to wander about my bed, where I followed them vaguely with my fading eyes.

May came, as eagerly awaited by the sick man as by the Halicti. Ileft Orange for Serignan, my last stage, I expect. While I was moving, the Bees resumed their building. I gave them a regretful glance, for I had still much to learn in their company. I have never since met with such a mighty colony.

These old observations on the habits of the Cylindrical Halictus may now be followed by a general summary which will incorporate the recent data supplied by the Zebra Halictus and the Early Halictus.

The females of the Cylindrical Halictus whom I unearth from November onwards are evidently fecundated, as is proved by the assiduity of the males during the preceding two months and most positively confirmed by the couples discovered in the course of my excavations.

These females spend the winter in their cells, as do many of the early-hatching melliferous insects, such as Anthophorae and Mason-bees, who build their nests in the spring, the larvae reaching the perfect state in the summer and yet remaining shut up in their cells until the following May. But there is this great difference in the case of the Cylindrical Halictus, that in the autumn the females leave their cells for a time to receive the males under ground. The couples pair and the males perish. Left alone, the females return to their cells, where they spend the inclement season.

The Zebra Halicti, studied first at Orange and then, under better conditions, at Serignan, in my own enclosure, have not these subterranean customs: they celebrate their weddings amid the joys of the light, the sun and the flowers. I see the first males appear in the middle of September, on the centauries. Generally there are several of them courting the same bride. Now one, then another, they swoop upon her suddenly, clasp her, leave her, seize hold of her again. Fierce brawls decide who shall possess her. One is accepted and the others decamp. With a swift and angular flight, they go from flower to flower, without alighting. They hover on the wing, looking about them, more intent on pairing than on eating.

The Early Halictus did not supply me with any definite information, partly through my own fault, partly through the difficulty of excavation in a stony soil, which calls for the pick-axe rather than the spade. I suspect her of having the nuptial customs of the Cylindrical Halictus.

There is another difference, which causes certain variations of detail in these customs. In the autumn, the females of the Cylindrical Halictus leave their burrows seldom or not at all. Those who do go out invariably come back after a brief halt upon the flowers. All pass the winter in the natal cells. On the other hand, those of the Zebra Halictus move their quarters, meet the males outside and do not return to the burrows, which my autumn excavations always find deserted. They hibernate in the first hiding-places that offer.

In the spring, the females, fecundated since the autumn, come out:

the Cylindrical Halicti from their cells, the Zebra Halicti from their various shelters, the Early Halicti apparently from their chambers, like the first. They work at their nests in the absence of any male, as do also the Social Wasps, whose whole brood has perished excepting a few mothers also fecundated in the autumn. In both cases, the assistance of the males is equally real, only it has preceded the laying by about six months.

So far, there is nothing new in the life of the Halicti; but here is where the unexpected appears: in July, another generation is produced; and this time without males. The absence of masculine assistance is no longer a mere semblance here, due to an earlier fecundation: it is a reality established beyond a doubt by the continuity of my observations and by my excavations during the summer season, before the emergence of the new Bees. At this period, a little before July, if my spade unearth the cells of any one of my three Halicti, the result is always females, nothing but females, with exceedingly rare exceptions.