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Title Page
1. Fear-tastic Four
2. The Legend of the Great Ghost Shark
3. Shape-Shifting Shock
4. Four Is Better Than One
5. Scary Splash Monster Bash
6. And the Crowd Goes Wild
7. Scared in the Square
8. Parent Pursuit
9. Great Ghost Shark Secret
10. Your Wish Is My Command
11. Meet the Parents
12. Make a Wish
13. Poseidon Parade Pointers
Sneak Peek
About the Author
Copyright
Brown-and-yellow kelp swished back and forth against my mane. It
was so soothing. I had my sketch pad perched on my tail, waiting
for fin-spiration to strike for my next drawing. Normally, the way
the kelp swished helped me concentrate, but not a single idea
popped into my head.
"Oh, blobfish," I moaned. “I’m never going to come up with a
costume for the Scary Splash Monster Bash.”
Scary Splash was my favorite holiday. Every-fishy dresses up
in creepy costumes, then swims to creatures’ doors and screams
“Swim-or-sweet!” to get hoof-fuls of candy. It’s mer-mazing and
scary in a fun way!
The best part of Scary Splash is the Scary Splash Monster Bash!
That’s a costume contest where every-fishy wears their scariest
outfit. Whoever has the creepiest costume gets their very own float
in the Scary Splash Parade. I really wanted to lead the celebration
this year.
 I’d drawn all kinds of costume ideas like fish skeletons and
mermicorn zombies, but nothing felt quite right. I wanted to dress as
something that had never been done before.

Just as I lifted my pencil to draw a mummy manatee, a shadow

passed over my right shoulder. Tingles ran up and down my tail, and
my mane itched like it always does when I’m nervous.
“Hello?” I called.
Another shadow passed on my left. It slithered away through
the kelp.
 Slithering had to mean it was the electric eels my friend Ruby
and I had seen here before. We thought the eels were angry at first,
but they were just hungry. I always kept a couple of Ruby’s
cupcakes that she made with her Baking Sparkle by my side, just in
case any of our eel friends needed a treat when I came to draw in
the kelp forest.
All mermicorns and sea creatures in Mermicorn Island have
magic that we call Sparkle. Ruby has her Baking Sparkle, which lets
her make baked goods. Flash has magical superspeed like all
seahorses. And because she’s a dolphin, Echo has echolocation,
which lets her find whatever she’s looking for.
My Sparkle hasn’t shown up yet, but I have a treasure chest of
magic seashells that hold all kinds of Sparkle. It was given to me by
Poseidon, the most powerful mermicorn in the seven seas.
Maybe there was a magic shell full of Scary Idea Sparkle. I could
sure use one, or else I would never win the costume contest at the
Scary Splash Monster B—
“BOO!”
“AH!” I screamed. “MONSTER!” I flung my sketch pad down and
squeezed my eyes shut. My heart raced and my mane itched all over
again as I expected some creepy critter to shriek at me.
But instead of monster roars, I just heard laughter. I peeked an
eye open to find Echo, Flash, and Ruby doubled over in giggles.
 “You practically scared the scales off my tail,” I said. Relief
washed over me that I wasn’t about to be eaten by some mermicorn
zombie.
“Sorry,” Ruby said through a smile. “We just couldn’t help it.”
“Yeah,” Flash agreed. “You were so deep in thought, it was the
perfect opportunity to sneak up on you.”
“And get you inspired for the Monster Bash,” Echo added. “How
can you come up with scary ideas if you’re not scared every once in
a while?” She put a flipper out to help me up from the seafloor. “No
hard feelings?”
I took a deep breath to settle my beating heart. “You got me
pretty good.”
 “Maybe we should change our name to the Fear-tastic Four
instead of Fin-tastic Four!” Flash said, talking super fast just like
he always does. “It’s the perfect name for us during Scary Splash.”
Flash, Echo, Ruby, and I were BFFFs: best fin friends forever. We
called our group of pals the Fin-tastic Four. Maybe Flash was
right and we could pick a new name for the scary celebration.
“That’s a mer-mazing idea!” I said. “I can’t believe how
scared I was. It’s like I thought you were the Great Ghost Shark or
something.”
Wait a minnow.
“That’s it!” I said. “You fishies scaring me did give me fin-
spiration. I know what my Monster Bash costume will be!”
“Ooh, what is it?” Ruby asked. “You know I always love dressing
up!”
I tried to wave my hooves back and forth as creepily as possible.
“The Great Ghost Shark!”
We swam back to my house while I planned my new Scary Splash
Monster Bash costume. As we made our way through town, we
passed all kinds of mer-mazing monster decorations that fishies
had hung outside their houses. There were shape-shifting selkie
skeletons, moaning mermaids, vampire walruses, and franken-fish!
Plus, there were all kinds of oozing brain-o’-lanterns made out of
brain coral.
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before,” I said. “The legend
of the Great Ghost Shark is one of the scariest stories in the seven
seas!”
Ruby scrunched her forehead. “How does that one go again?”
I turned my voice into a raspy whisper just like Dad did when he
told me this tale on our camping trip last year.
“The story goes that the Great Ghost Shark was the biggest
creature in the whole wide ocean,” I whispered. “Even bigger than
the kraken!”
“What about a magically magnified kraken Sugar Castle?” Flash
asked, giggling. “We sure made ours pretty big with that Grow
Shell!”

We couldn’t help but laugh. It broke the scary spell a bit, but
then I quickly cleared my throat so I could use my raspy voice again.
“The Great Ghost Shark has teeth the size of sea dragons, and
dark red eyes. It would use its magical camouflage to sneak up on
whole schools of fishies and eat them. Some say that no-fishy
has seen a kraken in hundreds of years because the Great Ghost
Shark”—I took a deep breath and leaped toward Echo
—“SWALLOWED THEM WHOLE!”
“Ah!” She jumped back, and her dorsal fin started to shake.
“Ooh, that’s scary! My dorsal fin normally shakes from excitement,
but this time it’s because you gave me the creeps! What ever
happened to the Great Ghost Shark anyway?”
“Just like the kraken, no-fishy has seen one in thousands of
years,” I answered. “But my dad said it might not have ever even
existed. It’s probably just a myth made to send chills up our scales.
But either way, I’ll be the first Great Ghost Shark any-fishy has
ever seen, even if it is just in costume.”
Flash stretched out his tail. It’s what he always does when he’s
about to use his magical superspeed.
“Could you imagine seeing one of those sharks in real life?” he
asked. “I’d take off like this!” He sprinted away and came back in
two seconds. “But I promise I’d bring you with me. No-fishy’s
getting eaten on my watch!”
Ruby laughed. “Good thing the Great Ghost Shark is just a story
and we’ll never have to worry about seeing a real one in Mermicorn
Island.”
I stopped floating, and my mouth dropped open.
“You okay, Lucky?” Echo asked. “You look like you actually did
see a Great Ghost Shark.”
 “That’s just it,” I said. “What if we really did see one? Instead of
just making a costume, I could actually turn into a real Great Ghost
Shark for the Scary Splash Monster Bash!”
“Silly scales,” Flash said. “You’re a mermicorn, not a shark. How
could you turn into a big mythical beast?”
I was so excited that I practically yelled as loud as I did when
my friends scared me: “Poseidon’s shells!”
Poseidon’s treasure chest sat in its usual spot at the foot of my bed,
but this time I had to push my stuffed zombie mermaids off it so I
could open the lid. As soon as I did, glittery gold light filled my
room. I loved the way the light made my favorite Manta Lisa poster
shine. The glow also landed on my drawings of Scary Splash
monsters that I’d put on my walls. It was so mer-mazing (and a
little creepy) the way the light made my Dracula dragons’ eyes
shine!
“So which one is going to get this Great Ghost Shark adventure
started?” Echo asked, turning my attention back to the dozens of
sparkly shells in the treasure chest.
“Hmm, let me see,” I said, and waved my hoof over the pile. I
always felt a tug from the tip of my tail to the tip of my horn that
pulled me to the shell that would help the most.
This time the tug took my hoof toward an oval-shaped purple
shell. Just as I was about to pick it up, it BALLOONED so it was
perfectly round and changed color to green with orange dots.
 “Did you fishies see that?” Flash asked. His eyes were as
round as the shell. “It changed shape, right? Or are my eyes playing
tricks on me?”
Ruby pointed back at the chest. “Oh my goldfish! It’s doing it
again.”
She was right. The round shell grew little points and turned
bright yellow. It looked a lot like the sun.
 “A shell that changes the way it looks has got to have Shape-
Shifting Sparkle,” I said. “Here I go.”
I reached forward and grabbed the shell. As soon as I touched
it, a warm, tingly, bubbly feeling washed over my scales. That was
the feeling of magic!
“Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot the trident,” Flash said. “Be back in
a flash.” In a BUBBLE-FILLED BLUR, Flash was gone and back with his
shiny toy trident.
Poseidon let us know that Flash’s trident could help me control
Shell Sparkle. All I had to do was stick the shell into the base of the
trident’s prongs, then picture what I wanted the magic to do and
wave the trident.
I attached the Shape-Shifting Shell to Flash’s toy, but just as I
was about to wave it, I realized I didn’t know exactly what a Great
Ghost Shark looked like.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories of the big scary shark, but I’ve never
seen a picture,” I said. “Maybe we should do some research before I
try turning into it.”
Echo’s dorsal fin shook, this time definitely from excitement. “I
bet my dad has some books about it.” Echo’s dad, Dalton, is an
archaeologist. That’s a really big word for a fishy who studies how
other fishies used to live in the past.
“But let’s still try out the shell to see if it works,” Ruby said. “If I
could shape-shift just right, I could try out for any role at the
Mermicorn Island Theater!” Other than being a fin-credible baker,
Ruby is the best actor I know.
“Good idea,” I said. “But what shape should I take?”
I floated around my room looking for something to turn into,
then realized the perfect fin-spiration was already on my walls.
“I could turn into one of these monsters!” I said, pointing at the
Scary Splash drawings I’d put up.
 My eyes landed on a mummy manatee picture, and I just knew
that was the one. I pictured my body bulging out, my skin turning a
sickly green, and rotting bandages covering me from mane to tail.
Then I waved the trident.
Glitter in all shapes and sizes burst from the Shape-Shifting
Shell, which was now rectangular and red with purple stripes. That
warm BUBBLY magic feeling washed all over my body. Next, my belly
got bigger and my tail widened out. Then I felt those oozy gray
bandages wrap around my body like a gentle hug.
My friends had their hooves and fins and flippers over their
mouths. They looked mer-mazed and disgusted all at the same
time.
 I drifted in front of my mirror.
“It worked!” I said. “I’m a mummy manatee.” I looked totally
gross and a bit scary, but in such a fin-credible way.
Dad knocked and floated in. When I turned around to say hi, he
lost all the color in his face.
“M-m-m-m-m-m-m—,” Dad stuttered. He couldn’t get any words
out. He was so scared, he had to use his Bubble Sparkle to spell the
word MUMMY in BUBBLES that burst from his horn.
“Dad, it’s okay. It’s just me!” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean
to scare you.”
But it was too late. He sped out of the room, calling for my mom
to find me and get out of the house.
I looked to my friends, and we all laughed.
“I guess that means the Shape-Shifting Shell Sparkle totally
works,” I said. “But before we plan out the Great Ghost Shark
costume, I’d better change back and find Dad.”
It didn’t take long to calm Dad down once I changed back. When I
told him and Mom that the Shape-Shifting Shell let me turn into a
mummy manatee, Dad laughed and Mom said, “With magic that
good, you’re bound to win the Scary Splash Monster Bash
tomorrow!”
“I’ll transform into the scariest monster of all,” I told them. “I’m
going to be the Great Ghost Shark!”
BUBBLES burst out of Dad’s horn to spell AAAH! SCARY! But he
was smiling so I knew he thought it was a good idea.
“And what are you fishies going to be?” Mom asked Ruby,
Echo, and Flash.
My friends looked at one another and shrugged. Guilt guppies
swam in my stomach. I’d talked so much about my costume that I
hadn’t offered to help my friends come up with theirs.
 "Oh, blobfish!" I moaned. “I’m sorry, every-fishy. I got so
caught up in the Great Ghost Shark and put all the attention on me.
We should try to win the costume contest as a team so we can all
lead the Scary Splash Parade together.”
Wait a minnow. An idea swam into my head.
“What’s scarier than one Great Ghost Shark?” I asked.
Flash raised his fin. “Ooh, ooh, ooh. I know this one! A hungry
Great Ghost Shark!” His stomach rumbled. “Speaking of which, can
we have some snacks?”
I laughed. “That would be scary, but I was thinking four Great
Ghost Sharks. Why don’t we go as a whole school of the scary
monsters?”
“Can you imagine four of those beasts swimming into the
Mermicorn Island Theater at once?” Ruby asked with wide eyes. “It’ll
be my most dramatic performance yet. I’m in!”
“Me too!” said Echo. “This will be the creepiest adventure of my
life.”
“And with me that makes us the Fear-tastic Four!” Flash said.
“This is going to rock! No, wait. This is going to shock!”
"Mer-mazing!" I cheered. “Let’s get to work. We’ve only got
one day to get everything ready for the Monster Bash.”
With that, we put together the plan for the creepiest costumes
Mermicorn Island would ever see.
 First, we went to Echo’s house to read through her dad’s books
and see what we could find about the Great Ghost Shark. One even
had pictures that were so fearsome we all jumped. In the book’s
illustrations, the Great Ghost Shark was super pale and bigger than a
blue whale, and had the reddest eyes I’d ever seen. After our Grow
Shell mishap, we decided we could still be scary sharks, but we’d
stay normal-sized so we didn’t cause another massive mess.
Next, I drew a design of the four of us as sharks, and we
thought of ideas to make ourselves look even creepier.
We decided we could cover our fins in rotten seaweed, and we could
wear necklaces of broken shell bits to make it look like we had even
more gruesome teeth and to be extra scary. Echo used her
echolocation to find the materials, and Flash sped around town in a
magical superspeed second to gather them.
Ruby kept our stomachs from growling like monsters by making
shark-shaped cinnamon rolls. They were sea-licious, and she even
made their eyes red with sea cherries!
By the end of the day, all was set to become the Fear-tastic
Four Great Ghost Sharks!
The next day, Echo, Flash, Ruby, and I floated backstage at the
Mermicorn Island Theater, where every-fishy in the Monster Bash
costume contest was lining up. Our parents all sat in the crowd,
ready to be wowed and creeped out by our Great Ghost Shark
transformation.
Based on the funny looks we were getting from other creatures
in the contest, they were ready for our outfits too. Fishies kept
asking where our costumes were, since we looked like our normal
selves.
Echo’s dorsal fin shook. “They’re going to be so mer-mazed
when we shape-shift onstage,” she whispered excitedly.
 “It’s going to be so dramatic!” Ruby added.
Our plan was to wait until we got onstage. Then Flash would use
a burst of superspeed to get our rotten seaweed and broken shell
teeth right when I waved the Shape-Shifting Shell to turn us all into
Great Ghost Sharks.
“We’re going to make the scariest splash at the Monster Bash!” I
said.
Mayor Vanderhoof swam to the stage, which was covered in
coral brain-o’-lanterns, and clapped her hooves together.
“Mer-monsters and Franken-fish, can I have your
attention, please?” she called. “It’s time for the Scary Splash Monster
Bash!”
Every-fishy in the audience cheered and whistled.
“As you know, the costume contest kicks off the Monster Bash
every year,” the mayor explained. “Whoever we vote as the scariest
costume gets to lead the Scary Splash Parade. Now, who’s ready to
be scared?”
My friends and I hollered along with the audience as the first
contestant took the stage. But as every new creature came up in
their costume, my cheers got quieter as my confidence got smaller.
The costumes were good. Scary good.
Roger the jellyfish dressed as a zombie and used his stinging
tentacles to shock a bunch of creepy zombie dolls so they jumped
and jolted across the stage. A mermicorn with Camouflage Sparkle
would disappear and jump out at different sea creatures in the
audience. A group of selkies used their own Shape-Shifting magic
and turned into hairy, snarling were-whales with claws on their
flippers.
 Each new costume was scarier and more fun than the last. And I
couldn’t help but notice that each contestant used their own Sparkle
to make their costume extra creepy. If I didn’t have Poseidon’s
magic shells, I wouldn’t have stood a chance against their outfits.
“Lucky,” Flash whispered, nudging my shoulder. “It’s time for us
to go on. You ready?”
He handed me his trident, complete with the Shape-Shifting
Shell in it. The shell must have known it was Scary Splash because it
was now in the shape of a sea dragon skull.
I grabbed the trident and took a deep breath. It was okay if I
didn’t have magic of my own. I had my shells, and no matter what, I
had the Fin-tastic Four to help me through anything.
“Let’s do this!” I said, and we all floated onstage. Our parents
cheered the loudest when the spotlight hit the four of us.
“Get ready to have the scare of your lives,” Ruby called, which
was my cue to raise the trident. When I had it straight up in the air,
Flash left and came back in two seconds. He draped the rotten
seaweed and broken shell teeth he’d grabbed around our necks.
I pictured the four of us turning into pale sharks with bright red
eyes, then waved the trident over me and my friends.
 Sparkles of every color flew from the Shape-Shifting Shell, and
I felt those warm magic tingles run from my tail to my mane. I
turned to my friends to see them shift into Great Ghost Sharks right
before my eyes.
Ruby opened her new sharp teeth-filled shark mouth to yell,
“Behold the Great Ghost Sharks!”
For a minnow, no-fishy said anything. Their mouths all dropped
open as they took in the four Great Ghost Sharks in front of them.
Then it was like they all took a breath together and started cheering
and clapping and laughing and hollering.
“So scary!”
“That’s brilliant!”
“I thought I’d never see a Great Ghost Shark ever in my life!”
I turned to my friends. They definitely looked a lot scarier than
normal!
Flash’s sharp teeth turned up into a huge grin. “This is mer-
mazing! Every-fishy will remember our costume for years.
Maybe we’ll even become legends like the Great Ghost Shark!”
Ruby pulled us into a huddle. “The show doesn’t have to be over
yet,” she said. “Let’s be extra scary. On the count of three, let’s all
roar at the same time.”
 Even as a shark, Echo’s dorsal fin shook. “This is going to be
fin-credible.”
We floated into position. Then Ruby held up a ghostly white
flipper and counted: “One, two, three.”
We each let loose a fearsome roar. With the four of us together,
it made the walls of the Mermicorn Island Theater shake.
Fishies’ eyes went wide all across the room. Some even
covered their ears. One mermaid hid under her chair, but she was
laughing so I knew it was all in good fun.

The mayor swam back onstage, grinning from ear to ear. She
turned to the crowd and said, “I think we can all agree that these
four are our Scary Splash Monster Bash winners.”
 The whole room burst into applause. I couldn’t believe we’d
won. The Shape-Shifting Shell worked!
“Well, then, let’s get the parade party started!” Mayor
Vanderhoof said, and she led the crowd out into Mermicorn Island
Square, where all types of mer-mazingly creepy floats waited.
One looked like the Loch Ness Monster, another was full of ice beasts
made by sea dragons, and a third was shaped like the Boogie
Barracuda, who hides under your bed.
Ruby, Echo, Flash, and I were still in our shark forms and swam
to the float at the very front of the line. It was the Loch Ness
Monster float. Humans think Nessie is scary, but every-fishy
knows he’s just a friendly guy who vacations in Mermicorn Island
sometimes.
 While we were about to climb into the float, I noticed a dark
shadow in the distance heading toward the square.
“Is there another float coming for the parade, Mayor
Vanderhoof?” I asked.
She looked at the shadow with a big scowl on her face. “That’s
strange. All the floats should have checked in before the costume
contest.”
“It’s moving pretty fast,” Flash said. “I should know. I am
superspeedy, after all.”
“But what is it?” Echo asked, then let loose a few of her magical
echolocation clicks, which help her see things far away. “Um,
every-fishy. That critter looks like us.”
Ruby turned toward Echo. “You mean it looks like us in our
costumes?”
Echo slowly nodded.
“That means it’s a—”
“GREAT GHOST SHARK!” Fishies everywhere screamed and
pointed above the square as the dark shadow became crystal clear.
It really was a Great Ghost Shark. But it wasn’t small like me
and my friends. It was gigantic! Its ghostly pale skin was even paler
than ours, and its red eyes were redder than I could have imagined.
But there was one thing about it that stood out the most:
It had tons and tons of sharp teeth. Teeth that were opening.
And coming right toward us.
The Great Ghost Shark hovered over Mermicorn Island Square. It
was way bigger than when Nelia was magically magnified by the
Grow Shell. When I looked up, all I could see was the shark’s
ghostly pale skin and red eyes.
Every-fishy started swimming away in a panic. Mom and Dad
and my friends’ parents raced toward us. Flash’s parents got there
first with their superspeed, just as the Great Ghost Shark opened its
way-too-big mouth.
"Oh my goldfish," Ruby said as row after row of sharp teeth
revealed itself.
 “What do we do?” Echo asked.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” Flash’s mom said, holding
out her fins. “Grab on and I’ll—”
“Help! Where am I?”
We all looked up. The Great Ghost Shark wasn’t opening their
mouth to eat us. They were talking.
“Please, help me,” they said again. “My name is Doris, and I
don’t know how I got here. Where are my parents?”
Flash’s eyes went wide. “You’re a kid? Just like us? Why are you
so big?”
Instead of looking fearsome and scary, Doris now looked
confused and worried. “I was going to ask why you four are so
small. I heard your roar and followed it, thinking you might be my
parents. You are Great Ghost Sharks, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly,” I said. I waved the trident with the now heart-
shaped Shape-Shifting Shell. With a rush of warm tingles, we
turned back into our normal selves. “We used magic to look like
Great Ghost Sharks for the Scary Splash Monster Bash.”
 Gigantic tears formed in Doris’s eyes. “Oh no,” she whimpered.
“I’m never going to find them.”
The rest of our parents had finally made it back to us. I instantly
felt safe, just like I always did when Mom and Dad were around.
Poor Doris must be really scared without hers.
“I’ve got a Shrink Shell back home that can get you to a size so
you can stay safe with us,” I yelled up to Doris. “Then we can look
for your parents. How does that sound?”
Doris wiped her tears away with her massive pale fins. “That
sounds okay.”
I turned to Flash. “Can you take me to my treasure chest?” I
asked. “That way we can be there and back in a flash.”
“You know I’m always happy to help. Let’s go!” Flash took my
fin, and in no time, I was back in my bedroom. I found the tiny pink
Shrink Shell I’d used to shrink Nelia back to her normal size. Then
we burst back into the square, where I swam up to Doris.
Before meeting her, I would have been afraid to be so close to
razor-sharp teeth that were twice as big as me. But I could see in
her face how sad and scared she was to be without her parents, and
knew we had to help.
“I’m going to use this Shell Sparkle, and you’ll feel some warm
magic BUBBLES,” I said. “Then you’ll be small enough to fit inside the
square. Ready?”
Doris nodded. I pictured her being the same size as me and my
friends, then waved the trident. Bright pink glitter burst over Doris,
and she shrunk right before my eyes. She was so big that it took
longer than I expected.
 When she was finally my size, I pointed down to the square.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go find your parents.”
The first thing I did was bring Doris over to my friends. They sure
know how to make me feel better whenever I’m upset.
“I’m so sorry you’re lost,” Ruby said. “Is it okay if I hug you?”
Doris gave a weak smile. “Thank you, but I’d rather not. I just
want to find my mom and dad.”
Ruby nodded and said, “We’ll find them. I promise.”
“Yeah,” Echo agreed. “Let’s see if they’re anywhere nearby.
Come on, Dads!” She grabbed her dads’ flippers. “Let’s use our
echolocation and see what comes up.” Echo and her parents swam
away, letting loose their magical clicks and whistles that could help
them locate anything, as long as it wasn’t too far away.
“Hey, we can help too!” Flash said, stretching between Mr. and
Mrs. Finnegan. “We’ll use our superspeed around town and see if
any Great Ghost Sharks are floating nearby. Ready, Mom? Ready,
Dad?”
 “Be back soon!” Flash’s mom said, and they were gone in a burst
of BUBBLES.
My mom drifted forward and asked, “Where did you last see
your parents, Doris?”
Doris chewed on her cheek while she thought. “Last night. I
went to sleep at my grandparents’ house in the Mariana Trench, but
sometimes I sleep-swim. I woke up and was completely lost. Then I
heard the Great Ghost Shark roar, and thought it might be my
parents.”
Guilt guppies swam in my stomach. “That was us in our monster
costumes. We roared for the crowd, and you must have heard it.”
“Why would you dress up as a Great Ghost Shark for a
monster?” Now Doris looked hurt as well as scared that she’d lost
her parents. Even more guilt guppies dashed through my belly.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You seem really nice. I can see now that all
those legends of Great Ghost Sharks swallowing towns whole are
completely wrong.”
Doris stuck out her tongue. “Ew, yuck! We don’t eat towns.
Speaking of which”—Doris rubbed her belly—“I am really hungry.”
Ruby perked up. “That’s something I can help with. Do you like
cake?”
Doris looked happy for the first time since she’d floated into
Mermicorn Island. “I love it! Kelp Kreme Cake is my favorite.”
“Coming right up!” Ruby squinted her eyes and wiggled her tail.
Then, in a burst of red glitter, a beautiful Kelp Kreme Cake appeared.
Ruby handed it to Doris. “There’s more where that came from if
you’re still hungry.”
 Doris took the cake and gobbled it down. "Sea-licious!"
I looked around while every-fishy who was scared before
crowded back in to the square. Most were still in their creepy
costumes, but they weren’t focused on having a Scary Splash Parade
anymore. Now they were trying to help Doris find her parents.
The sea dragons shot bursting iceworks, hoping any passing
Great Ghost Shark would see their bright colors. The mermaids used
their magical singing to try to lure Doris’s parents to the square.
Plus, all the dolphins and seahorses joined Echo and Flash in their
search. Ruby and Baxter Beluga kept every-fishy fed with baked
treats.
Meanwhile, I just floated there. I didn’t have any magic that
could help.
"Wait a minnow," I said. “Maybe there’s some kind of Shark
Shell Sparkle in Poseidon’s chest.” I turned to my parents. “Is it
okay if I run home really quick? I want to find a magic shell that
could help.”
“Of course,” Dad said. “We’ll go with you.”
“Can I go too?” Doris asked. “All these scary decorations are
kind of freaking me out.”
It was funny to think that something I used to think was a
monster could get just as frightened as every-fishy else during
Scary Splash.
“Absolutely,” I said.
We were off to see if I could lend a helping hoof.
Usually it took me a long time to swim home while I looked at all the
Scary Splash decorations on every-fishy’s house, but that day I
swam almost as fast as Flash. I had to find some way to help Doris
get to her parents.
As soon as we swam through the front door, Doris and I burst
into my room and opened up Poseidon’s chest of magic shells.
“Those shells are sea-utiful,” Doris said.
She was right. The shells glittered and sparkled just like they
always did, but something was off.
 I didn’t feel a tug in my hooves. Or in my tail. Not a single scale
buzzed with that magical feeling that pulled me toward the shell with
the right type of Sparkle to help.
“How do they work?” Doris asked. She reached forward and
picked up the very first shell I had ever used: the spiral blue
Invisibility Shell. Doris disappeared right before my eyes.
"Oh my goldfish," she cried. “I’m invisible!” She reappeared
soon after when she gently put the shell back in the treasure chest.
“That’s definitely not the shell I need right now. My parents will
never find me if they can’t see me. Which shell do you think will
help?”
My heart sank into the tip of my tail. “Well, normally I feel a pull
toward the one that should have the right magic. But … I don’t feel
anything. I’m so sorry, Doris. Poseidon said sometimes magic can’t
solve our problems, and I guess this might be one of those times.”
 Suddenly, my window flew open and Flash sped inside. Ruby
and Echo were with him too. They each held on to one of his fins.
“What’d we miss?” Flash asked. “Did you find a shell that could
get us to Doris’s parents?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s the first time that I’ve never felt a pull
toward the shells.” I didn’t think it was possible, but it felt like my
heart sank even further. “What if I can’t make the shells work
anymore? What if I don’t even have Shell Sparkle?”
Ruby swam forward and gave me a hug. “It’s okay if you don’t,”
she said. “Every-fishy is helping.”
“That’s right,” Echo agreed. “With seahorse superspeed, dolphin
echolocation, and every mermicorn using their Sparkle, we are for
sure going to find those Great Ghost Sharks.”
 “Okay,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I definitely wanted to
find Doris’s mom and dad, but I wished that I could help. Somehow
I was the only creature in all of Mermicorn Island who couldn’t use
magic to help in the Great Ghost Shark Search.
That’s when it clicked. I wasn’t the only one not using special
powers.
“Doris,” I said, turning to my new ghostly friend. “Every-fishy
in Mermicorn Island has magic. Do Great Ghost Sharks have magic
too?”
Doris looked nervously at the floor. “Yes, but …” She paused.
“My parents told me never to share it.”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble,” I said. “I just
thought it might be able to help with the search.”
 Doris chewed on her cheek again, which surprisingly didn’t seem
to hurt even though her teeth were extra jagged. She looked like
she was bursting to tell us something.
“Are you okay, Doris?” Flash asked. “When I fidget around like
that, it’s because I have to use the bathroom. I can show you where
the toilet is.”
“No, it’s not that,” Doris said. “I think maybe my magic can help.
But if I tell you what it is, you promise not to share it with any-
fishy else?”
“We promise,” my friends and I all said at the same time. Then
we busted up in giggles. But even though we were laughing, Doris
still looked anxious.
 “Okay, here it goes,” she said, and took a deep breath. She even
looked over her shoulder like she thought other fishies might be
eavesdropping. When she saw that the coast was clear, Doris finally
told us what type of Sparkle she had.
“Great Ghost Sharks can grant wishes.”
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
attempt elsewhere in a circuit of a few [268]inches. No exploration of
the gallery—no anxiety for the distressed larva; though the grub,
whose delicate skin has just exchanged the gentle moisture of a
cave for burning sunshine, is writhing on its heap of chewed Diptera,
the mother takes no notice of it. For her it is no more than any one of
the objects strewn on the sand,—a little pebble, a clod, a scrap of
dried mud,—nothing more. It is undeserving of attention. This tender,
faithful mother, who wears herself out in efforts to reach her
nursling’s cradle, cares nothing just now but for her entrance door—
the door she is used to. That which goes to her maternal heart is the
longing to find the well-known passage. Yet the way is open; nothing
holds her back, and under her eyes wriggles the grub, the final
object of her anxiety. With one spring she would be at the side of the
unhappy larva who so needs help. Why does she not rush to her
beloved nursling? She could dig a new habitation and get it swiftly
underground. But no—she persists in seeking a way which no longer
exists, while her son is grilled under her eyes. I was boundlessly
surprised by this obtuse maternity, since maternity is the most
powerful and most fertile in resource of all feelings which move the
animal. Hardly could I have believed my eyes but for endless
experiments on the Cerceris and Philanthidæ, as well as on
Bembecidæ of different species. Stranger still, the mother, after long
hesitation, at length entered the unroofed passage—all that was left
of the corridor. She advanced, drew back, and gave a few careless
sweeps without stopping. Guided by vague recollections, and
perhaps by the smell of [269]venison exhaled from the heap of
Diptera, she came occasionally as far as the end of the gallery, the
very spot where lay the larva. Mother and son had met. At this
moment of reunion after long anxiety, were there earnest solicitude,
sign of tenderness, or of maternal joy? Whoever thinks so has only
to repeat my experiment to convince himself of the contrary. The
Bembex did not recognise her larva at all; it was a worthless thing, in
her way,—nothing but an embarrassment. She walked over it and
trampled it unheeding, as she hurried backwards and forwards. If
she wanted to dig at the bottom of the cell, she rudely kicked it
behind her,—pushed, upset, expelled it, as she might have treated a
large bit of gravel which got in her way while at work. Thus
maltreated, the larva bethought itself of defence. I have seen it seize
her by one tarsus with no more ceremony than she would have
shown in biting the foot of a Dipteron caught by her. The struggle
was sharp, but at last the fierce mandibles let go, and the mother
flew wildly away with her sharpest hum. This unnatural scene of the
son biting the mother, and perhaps even trying to eat her, is unusual,
and brought about by circumstances which the observer is not
always able to conjure up. What one can always witness is the
profound indifference of the Hymenopteron for its offspring, and the
brutal disdain with which that inconvenient heap, the grub, is treated.
Once she has raked out the far end of the passage, which is done in
a moment, the Bembex returns to her favourite point, the threshold,
to resume her useless researches. As for the grub, it continues to
struggle [270]and wriggle wherever the maternal kicks may have
landed it. It will perish unaided by its mother, who could not
recognise it because she was unable to find the passage she was
used to. If we return to-morrow, we shall find it in the gallery, half-
broiled by the sun, and already a prey to the flies—once its own
prey.

Such is the connection in acts of instinct; one leading to the next in

an order that the most serious circumstances have no power to alter.
After all, what was the Bembex seeking? Her larva, evidently. But to
reach this larva she had to enter the burrow, and to enter the burrow
she had to find the door, and the mother persists in seeking this door
while the gallery lay open with provender and larva all before her.
The ruined abode, the endangered family, were for the moment
unimportant; all she could think of was the familiar passage reached
through loose sand. Let all go—habitation and inhabitant—if this
passage be not found! Her actions are like a series of echoes,
awaking one another in a fixed order, the following one only
sounding when the preceding has sounded. Not because there was
any obstacle; the burrow was all open, but for want of the usual
entrance the first action could not take place. That decides
everything; the first echo is mute, and so all the rest are silent. What
a gulf between intelligence and instinct! Through the ruins of the
shattered dwelling a mother guided by intelligence rushes straight to
her son; guided by instinct she stops obstinately where once was the
door. [271]
[Contents]
XX
 MASON BEES

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. [272]

Morning and evening, at the sound of a bell, there tumbled in some fifty young
rascals, who, having failed to master De viris and the Epitome, were devoting
themselves, as one said then, to “some good years of French.” The failures at
“Rosa, a Rose,” came to me to learn a little spelling. Children were mingled with
tall lads at various stages of education, and all distressingly agreed in playing
tricks on the master—no older, even younger, than some of themselves.

I taught the little ones to read syllables, the middle ones to hold a pen in the right
way while writing a few words of dictation on their knees; for the eldest I unveiled
the secrets of fractions, and even the mysteries of the hypotenuse. And the only
means I had to keep this restless crowd in order, give each mind appropriate
food, arouse attention, expel dulness from the gloomy room whose very walls
dripped melancholy, were my tongue and a bit of chalk.

For that matter there was equal disdain in the other classes for all which was not
Latin or Greek. One instance will suffice to show the style in which physical
science was treated, now so large a part of education. The principal of this
college was an excellent man—the worthy Abbé X, who, not anxious himself to
grow green peas and bacon, turned over such matters to some relation of his,
and undertook to teach physical science.
 [To face p. 272.
MASON BEES—CHALICODOMA MURARIA ON OLD NEST

Let us attend one of his lessons, which happens to be on the barometer. By

good luck the college owned one. It was an old article, very dusty, hung high out
of reach of profane hands, and bearing on [273]its face in large letters the words,
Storm, Rain, Fine. “The barometer,” began the good abbé, addressing himself to
his disciples—he used a fatherly second person singular to each,—“the
barometer gives notice of good or bad weather. Thou seest the words written
here—Storm, Rain—thou seest, Bastien?” “I see,” replies Bastien, the most
mischievous of the troop. He has run through his book, and knows more about
the barometer than does his professor. “It is composed,” the abbé goes on, “of a
curved glass tube full of mercury which rises and falls according to the weather.
The small branch of this tube is open; the other—the other—we shall see as to
the other. Bastien—Get on this chair, and just feel with the tip of thy finger if the
long branch is open or closed. I do not quite remember.” Bastien goes to the
chair, stands as high as he can on tip-toe, and feels the top of the long column
with a finger tip. Then, with a slight smile under the down of his dawning
moustache, he replies, “Yes, exactly; yes, the long branch is open at the top. I
can feel the hollow.” And to corroborate his mendacious statement he went on
moving his forefinger on the top of the tube, while his co-disciples, accomplices
in mischief, stifled their laughter as best they could. The abbé said calmly, “That
will do. Come down, Bastien. Gentlemen, write in your notes that the long
branch of the barometer is open. You might forget it. I had forgotten it myself.”

Thus were physics taught. Things mended, however; a master came, and came
to stay,—one who knew that the long branch of a barometer is [274]closed. I
obtained tables on which my pupils could write instead of scrawling on their
knees, and as my class grew daily larger, it ended by being divided. As soon as I
had an assistant to look after the younger ones, things changed for the better.

Among the subjects taught, one pleased master and pupils equally. This was
out-of-door geometry, practical surveying. The college had none of the
necessary outfit, but with my large emoluments—700 francs, if you please!—I
could not hesitate as to making the outlay. A measuring chain and stakes, a
level, square, and compass were bought at my expense. A tiny graphometer,
hardly bigger than one’s palm, and worth about 4s. 2d., was furnished by the
college. We had no tripod, and I had one made. In short, my outfit was complete.
When May came, once a week the gloomy class-room was exchanged for the
fields, and we all felt it as a holiday. There were disputes as to the honour of
carrying the stakes, divided into packets of three, and more than one shoulder
as we went through the town felt glorified in the sight of all by the learned
burden. I myself—why conceal it?—was not without a certain satisfaction at
carrying tenderly the most precious part of the apparatus, the famous four-and-
twopenny graphometer. The scene of operations was an uncultivated pebbly
plain—a harmas, as we call it in these parts. No curtain of live hedge, no
bushes, hindered me from keeping an eye upon my followers; here—an all
important condition—I need not fear temptation from green apricots for my
scholars. There was free scope for all imaginable [275]polygons; trapezes and
triangles might be joined at will. Wide distances suggested plenty of elbow room,
and there was even an ancient building, once a dovecote, which lent its vertical
lines to the service of the graphometer.

Now from the very first a suspicious something caught my attention. If a scholar
were sent to plant a distant stake I saw him frequently pause, stoop, rise, seek
about, and stoop again, forgetful of straight line and of signals. Another, whose
work it was to pick up pegs, forgot the iron spike and took a pebble instead; and
a third, deaf to the measurements of the angle, crumbled up a clod. The greater
number were caught licking a bit of straw, and polygons stood still, and
diagonals came to grief. What could be the mystery? I inquired, and all was
explained. Searcher and observer born, the scholar was well aware of what the
master was ignorant of—namely, that a great black bee makes earthen nests on
the pebbles of the harmas, and that in these nests there is honey. My surveyors
were opening and emptying the cells with a straw. I was instructed in the proper
method. The honey, though somewhat strong-flavoured, is very acceptable; I in
turn acquired a taste for it, and joined the nest-hunters. Later, the polygon was
resumed. Thus it was that for the first time I saw Réaumur’s Mason Bee,
knowing neither its history nor its historian.

This splendid Hymenopteron, with its dark violet wings and costume of black
velvet, its rustic constructions on the sun-warmed pebbles among the thyme, its
honey, which brought diversion from the severities [276]of compass and square,
made a strong impression on my mind, and I wished to know more about it than
my pupils had taught me—namely, how to rob the cells of their honey with a
straw. Just then my bookseller had for sale a magnificent work on insects, The
Natural History of Articulated Animals, by de Castelnau, E. Blanchard, and
Lucas. It was enriched with many engravings which caught the eye. But alas, it
had a price—such a price! What did that matter? My 700 francs ought surely to
suffice for everything—food for the mind as well as for the body. That which I
bestowed on the one I retrenched from the other—a balance of accounts to
which whoever takes science for a livelihood must needs resign himself. The
purchase was made. That day I bled my university stipend abundantly; I paid
away a whole month of it. It took a miracle of parsimony to fill up the enormous
deficit.

The book was devoured—I can use no other word. There I learned the name of
my black bee, and there I read for the first time details of the habits of insects,
and found, with what seemed to my eyes an aureole round them, the venerated
names of Réaumur, Huber, Léon Dufour; and while I turned the pages for the
hundredth time, a voice whispered vaguely, “Thou too shalt be a historian of
animals!” Naïve illusions! where are you? But let us banish these recollections,
both sweet and sad, and come to the doings of our black bee.

Chalicodoma, house of pebbles, rough-cast mortar, a name which would be

perfect did it not look odd to any one not well up in Greek. It is a [277]name
applied to those Hymenoptera that build cells with materials such as we use for
our dwellings. It is masonry, but made by a rustic workman, better used to dried
clay than to hewn stone. A stranger to scientific classification (and this causes
great obscurity in some of his memoirs), Réaumur called the worker after the
work, and named our builders in dried clay Mason Bees, which paints them
exactly. We have two kinds, C. muraria, whose history is admirably given by
Réaumur, and C. sicula, which is not special to the land of Etna, as the name
suggests, but is found in Greece, Algeria, and the Mediterranean region of
France, especially in the department of Vaucluse, where in May it is one of the
most common Hymenoptera. The two sexes of C. muraria are so unlike in
colouring that a novice observing both coming out of the same nest would take
them for strangers to one another. The female is of a splendid velvet black, with
dark violet wings; in the male the black velvet is replaced by a bright iron-red
fleece. The second species—a much smaller one—has not this difference of
colour, both sexes wearing the same costume—a general mixture of brown, red,
and ashy tints. Both begin to build in the beginning of May. The wing-tips,
washed with violet on a bronze ground, faintly recall the rich purple of the first
species.

As Réaumur tells us, C. muraria in the northern provinces chooses as the place
to fix her nest a wall well exposed to the sun and not plastered, as the plaster
might come off and endanger her cells. She only entrusts her constructions to a
solid foundation, such as a bare stone. I see that she is equally [278]prudent in
the south, but, for some reason unknown to me, she generally chooses some
other base than the stone of a wall. A rolled pebble, often hardly larger than
one’s fist,—one of those with which the waters of the glacial period covered the
terraces of the Rhône valley,—is her favourite support. The great ease with
which such a one is found may influence her; all our slightly raised plateaux, all
our arid thyme-clad ground, are but heaped pebbles cemented with red earth. In
the valleys the bee can also use the stones gathered in torrent beds; near
Orange, for instance, her favourite spots are the alluviums of the Aygues, with
their stretches of rolled boulders no longer visited by water. Or if a pebble be
wanting, she will establish her nest on a boundary stone or an enclosing wall.

Chalicodoma sicula has a yet greater variety of choice. Her favourite position is
under a tile projecting from the edge of a roof. There is scarcely a little dwelling
in the fields that does not thus shelter her nests. There, every spring, she
establishes populous colonies, whose masonry, transmitted from one generation
to another, and yearly enlarged, finally covers a very considerable surface. I
have seen such a one under the tiles of a shed, which spread over five or six
square yards. When the colony were hard at work, their number and humming
fairly made one dizzy. The underpart of a balcony pleases them equally, or the
frame of an unused window,—above all, if closed by a sun-shutter, which offers
a free passage. But these are great meeting-places, where labour, each for
herself, hundreds and thousands of workers. If alone, which not seldom occurs,
Chalicodoma [279]sicula establishes herself in the first little spot she can find, so
long as it has a solid basis and heat. As for the nature of this basis it matters
little. I have seen nests built on bare stones and brick, on a shutter, and even on
the glass panes in a shed. One thing only does not suit the bee—namely, the
stucco of our houses. Prudent, like her retainer C. muraria, she would fear ruin
to her cells did she entrust them to a support which might fall.

Finally, for reasons which I cannot yet satisfactorily explain, C. sicula often
entirely changes her manner of building, turning her heavy mortar dwelling,
which seems to require a rock to support it, into an aerial one, hung to a bough.
A bush in a hedge,—no matter what—hawthorn, pomegranate, or Paliurus,—
offers a support, usually about the height of a man, Ilex and elm give a greater
height. The bee chooses in some thicket a bough about as thick as a straw, and
constructs her edifice on this narrow base with the same mortar which would be
used under a balcony or the projecting edge of a roof. When finished, the nest is
a ball of earth, traversed literally by the bough. If made by a single insect it is the
size of an apricot, and of a fist if several have worked at it; but this seldom
occurs.

Both species use the same materials, a calcareous clay, mixed with a little sand
and kneaded with the mason’s own saliva. Damp spots which would facilitate
labour and spare saliva to mix mortar are disdained by the Chalicodoma, which
refuses fresh earth for building, just as our builders refuse old plaster and lime.
Such materials when soaked with humidity would not hold properly. What is
needed is a dry [280]powder, which readily absorbs the disgorged saliva, and
forms with the albuminous principles of this liquid a kind of Roman cement,
hardening quickly,—something like what we obtain with quicklime and white of
egg.
 [To face p. 280.
MASON BEES—CHALICODOMA SICULA AND NEST

A beaten road, formed of calcareous boulders crushed by passing wheels into a

smooth surface like paving stones, is the quarry whence Chalicodoma sicula
prefers to get mortar; whether she builds on a branch, in a hedge, or under the
jutting roof of some rural habitation, it is always from a neighbouring path, or a
road, or the highway, that she seeks materials—indifferent to the constant
passing of beasts and travellers. You should see the active bee at work when
the road is dazzling white in the hot sunshine. Between the neighbouring farm
where she is building and the road where the mortar is prepared, there is the
deep hum of the bees perpetually crossing each other as they come and go.
The air seems traversed by constant trails of smoke, so rapid and direct is their
flight. Those who go carry away a pellet of mortar as big as small shot; those
who come settle on the hardest and driest spots. Their whole body vibrates as
they scratch with the tips of their mandibles, and rake with their forefeet to
extract atoms of earth and grains of sand, which, being rolled between their
teeth, become moist with saliva and unite. They work with such ardour that they
will let themselves be crushed under the foot of a passer-by rather than move.
Chalicodoma muraria, however, which seeks solitude, far from human
habitation, is rarely seen on beaten paths; perhaps they are too distant from the
places where she builds. If [281]she can find dry earth, rich in small gravel, near
the boulder chosen as the basis of her nest, she is contented. She may either
make quite a new nest in a spot hitherto unoccupied, or over the cells of an old
one, after repairing them. Let us consider the first case.

After choosing a boulder, she comes with a pellet of mortar in her mandibles,
and arranges it in a ring on the surface of the pebble. The forefeet, and above all
the mandibles, which are her most important tools, work the material, which is
kept plastic by the gradually disgorged saliva. To consolidate the unbaked clay,
angular pieces of gravel, as large as a small bean, are worked in singly on the
outside of the still soft mass. This is the foundation of the edifice. Other layers
are added until the cell has the required height of three or four centimetres. The
masonry is formed by stones laid on one another and cemented with lime, and
can stand comparison with our own. True, to economise labour and mortar, the
bee uses coarse materials,—large bits of gravel, which in her case answer to
hewn blocks. They are chosen singly—very hard ones, almost always with
angles which, fitted together, give mutual support, and add solidity to the whole.
Layers of mortar, sparingly used, hold them together. The outside of the cell thus
assumes the look of a piece of rustic architecture, in which stones project with
their natural inequalities; but over the inside, which requires a smoother surface
in order not to wound the tender skin of the larva, is spread a wash of pure
mortar—artlessly, however, as if by broad sweeps of a trowel; and when it has
eaten up its honey paste, the grub [282]takes care to make a cocoon and hang
the rude wall of its abode with silk. The Anthophora and Halictus, whose larvæ
spin no cocoon, varnish the inside of their earthen cells delicately, giving them
the polish of worked ivory.

The construction, the axis of which is always nearly vertical, with an orifice
opening upward, so that the fluid honey may not run out, differs a little in form,
according to its basis. On a horizontal surface it rises like a little oval tower; on a
vertical or slanting one it resembles half a thimble cut down its length. In this
case the support—the pebble itself—completes the surrounding wall. The cell
completed, the bee sets to work at once to store it. The neighbouring flowers,
especially those of Genista scorpius, which in May turn the alluviums of the
torrents golden, furnish sugared liquid and pollen. She comes with her crop
swelled with honey, and all yellow underneath with pollen dust, and plunges
head first into the cell, where for some moments one may see her work her body
in a way which tells that she is disgorging honey. Her crop emptied, she comes
out, but only to go in again at once—this time backwards. With her two hind feet
she now frees herself from her load, of pollen by brushing herself underneath.
Again she goes out, and returns head first. She must stir the materials with her
mandibles for a spoon, and mix all thoroughly together. This labour of mixing is
not repeated after every journey, but only from time to time, when a considerable
quantity has been collected. When the cell is half full, it is stored; an egg must
be laid on the honey paste, and the door [283]has to be closed. This is all done
without delay. The orifice is closed by a cover of undiluted mortar, worked from
the circumference to the centre. Two days at most seem required for the whole
work, unless bad weather or a cloudy day should interrupt it. Then, backing on
the first cell, a second is built and stored in the same way, and a third and fourth,
etc., follow, each one with honey and an egg, and closed before another is
begun. Work once begun is continued until it is completed, the bee never
building a new cell until the four acts required to perfect the preceding one are
performed—namely, construction, provisioning, an egg, and sealing the cell.

As Chalicodoma muraria always works alone on her chosen boulder, and shows
great jealousy if her neighbours alight there, the number of cells clustered on
one pebble is not great—usually six to ten. Are some eight larvæ her whole
progeny, or will she establish a more numerous family on other boulders? The
surface of the stone would allow of more cells if she had eggs for them, and the
bee might build there very comfortably without hunting for another, or leaving the
one to which she is attached by habit and long acquaintance. I think, therefore,
that most probably all her scanty family are settled on the same stone—at all
events when she builds a new abode.

The six or ten cells composing the group are certainly a solid dwelling, with their
rustic covering of gravel, but the thickness of their walls and lids—two
millimetres at most—hardly seems sufficient against rough weather. Set on its
stone in the open [284]air, quite unsheltered, the nest will undergo the heat of
summer suns which will turn every cell into an oven; then will come the autumn
rains which will slowly eat away the masonry, and then winter frosts which will
crumble what the rain may have respected. However hard the cement may be,
can it resist all these attacks, and if it can, will not the larvæ, sheltered by so thin
a wall, suffer from over-heat in summer and too keen cold in winter?

Without having gone through all these arguments, the bee acts wisely. When all
the cells are completed she builds a thick cover over the whole group, which,
being of a material impermeable to water and almost a non-conductor, is at once
a defence against heat and cold and damp. This material is the usual mortar,
made of earth and saliva, only with no small stones in it. The bee lays it on,—
one pellet after another, one trowelful and then a second,—till there is a layer a
centimetre thick over all the cells, which disappear entirely under it. The nest is
now a rude dome, about as big as half an orange; one would take it for a clod of
mud, half crushed by being flung against a stone where it had dried. Nothing
outside betrays its contents—no suggestion of cells—none of labour. To the
ordinary eye it is only a chance splash of mud.

This general cover dries as rapidly as do our hydraulic cements, and the nest is
almost as hard as a stone. A knife with a strong blade is needed to cut it. In its
final shape the nest recalls in no degree the original work; one would suppose
the elegant turrets adorned with pebble work, and the final dome, looking like a
bit of mud, to be the work of [285]two different species. But scratch away the
cover of cement and we recognise the cells and their layers of tiny pebbles.
Instead of building on a boulder yet unoccupied, Chalicodoma muraria likes to
utilise old nests which have lasted through the year without notable injury. The
mortared dome has remained much as it was at the beginning, so solid was the
masonry; only it is pierced by a number of round holes corresponding to the
chambers inhabited by the larvæ of the past generation. Such dwellings, only
needing a little repair to put them in good condition, economise much time and
toil; so Mason Bees seek them, and only undertake new constructions when old
nests fail them.

From the same dome come forth brothers and sisters—reddish males and black
females—all descendants of the same bee. The males lead a careless life,
avoiding all labour, and only returning to their clay dwellings for a brief courtship
of their ladies; and they care nothing for the deserted dwelling. What they want
is nectar from flower-cups, not mortar between their mandibles. But there are the
young mothers, who have sole charge of the future of the family—to which of
them will fall the inheritance of the old nest? As sisters they have an equal right
to it—so would human justice decide, now that it has made the enormous
progress of freeing itself from the old savage right of primogeniture; but Mason
Bees have not got beyond the primitive basis of property—the right of the first
comer.

So when the time to lay has come, a bee takes the first free nest which suits her
and establishes herself [286]there, and woe to any sister or neighbour who
thenceforward disputes possession of it. A hot reception and fierce pursuit would
soon put the new-comer to flight; only one cell is wanted at the moment out of all
which gape like little wells around the dome, but the bee calculates that by and
by the rest will be useful, and she keeps a jealous watch on them all and drives
away every visitor. I cannot remember having seen two Mason Bees working on
the same pebble.

The work is now very simple. The bee examines the inside of the old cell to see
where repairs are needed, tears down the rags of cocoon hanging on the walls,
carries out the bits of earth fallen from the vault pierced by the inhabitant in
order to get out, mortars any places out of repair, mends the orifice a little, and
that is all. Then comes storage, laying an egg, and stopping up the cell. When
these are successively completed, the general cover, the mortar dome, is
repaired if necessary, and all is finished.

Chalicodoma sicula prefers a sociable life to a solitary one, and hundreds—nay,

several thousands—will establish themselves on the under surface of the tiles
on a hovel, or the edge of a roof. It is not a real society with common interests,
dear to all, but merely a gathering where each works for herself and is not
concerned for the rest—a throng recalling the swarm of a hive only by their
number and industry. They use the same mortar as Chalicodoma muraria,
equally resistant and waterproof, but finer and without pebbles. First the old
nests are utilised. Every free cell is repaired, stored, and shut up. But the old
ones are far from sufficing to the population, which increases rapidly year by
year, and on the [287]surface of the nest, where the cells are hidden below the
old general mortar covering, new ones are built as required. They are placed
more or less horizontally, one beside another, with no kind of order. Every
constructor builds as the fancy takes her, where and as she wills; only she must
not interfere with her neighbour’s work, or rough treatment will soon call her to
order. The cells accumulate in chance fashion in this workyard, where there is
no general plan whatever. Their form is that of a thimble divided down the axis,
and their enclosure is completed either by adjacent cells, or the surface of the
old nest. Outside they are rough, and look like layers of knotted cords
corresponding to the layers of mortar. Inside the walls are level but not smooth;
a cocoon will replace the absent polish.

As soon as a cell is built it is stored and walled up, as we have seen with
Chalicodoma muraria. This work goes on through the whole of May. At length all
the eggs are laid, and the bees, without any distinction as to what does or does
not belong to them, all set to work on a common shelter of the colony—a thick
bed of mortar, filling up spaces and covering all the cells. In the end the nests
look like a large mass of dry mud—very irregular, arched, thickest in the middle,
the primitive kernel of the establishment, thinnest at the edges, where there are
fewest cells, and very variable in extent, according to the number of workers,
and consequently to the time when the nest was begun. Some are not much
larger than one’s hand, while others will occupy the greater part of the edge of a
roof, and be measured by square yards. [288]

If Chalicodoma sicula works alone, as she often does, on the shutter of an

unused window or on a stone or a branch, she behaves in just the same way.
For instance, if the nest is on a bough, she begins by solidly fixing the basis of
her cell on the slender twig. Then the building rises into a little vertical tower.
This cell being stored and ceiled, another follows, supported both by the bough
and the first cell, until six to ten cells are grouped one beside the other, and
finally a general cover of mortar encloses them all together with the bough,
which gives them a firm foundation. [289]
[Contents]
XXI
 EXPERIMENTS

Built on small pebbles which one can carry whither one will, remove,
or interchange, without disturbing either the work of the constructor
or the quiet of the inhabitants of the cells, the nests of Chalicodoma
muraria lend themselves readily to experiment—the only method
capable of throwing a little light on the nature of instinct. Profitably to
study the physical faculties of the animal it is not enough to know
how to turn to account such circumstances as a happy chance may
offer to the observer: one must be capable of originating others, and
vary them as much as possible and submit them to mutual control; in
short, to give science a solid basis of fact one must experiment.
Then some day will vanish before the evidence of exact documents
the fantastic legends which cumber our books, such as the
Scarabæus inviting his comrades to help in dragging his ball out of a
rut, or a Sphex cutting up a fly to carry it in spite of the wind, and
much more which is misused by those who desire to see in the
animal world that which is not there. Thus, too, will materials be
prepared which, used sooner or later by a learned [290]hand, will cast
premature and baseless theories back into oblivion.

Réaumur generally confines himself to stating facts as they offered

themselves to him in the normal course of things, and does not
attempt to penetrate further into the powers of the insect by means
of conditions brought about artificially. In his day there was
everything to do, and the harvest was so great that the illustrious
reaper hurried on to what was most urgent,—the gathering of it in,
leading his successors to examine grain and ear in detail.
Nevertheless, he mentions an experiment made on Chalicodoma
muraria by his friend Du Hamel. The nest was placed in a glass
funnel, the mouth of which was closed by a piece of gauze. Three