works in peace. If hostilities were to be resumed straight
away, as murderous in summer as they were in spring, the progeny of the
Halictus, too cruelly smitten, might possibly disappear altogether. This
lull readjusts the balance.

In April, when the Zebra Halictus, in search of a good place for her
burrows, roams up and down the garden paths with her oscillating
flight, the parasite, on its side, hastens to hatch. Oh, the precise
and terrible agreement between those two calendars, the calendar of the
persecutor and the persecuted! At the very moment when the Bee comes
out, here is the Gnat: she is ready to begin her deadly starving-process
all over again.

Were this an isolated case, one's mind would not dwell upon it: an
Halictus more or less in the world makes little difference in the
general balance. But, alas, brigandage in all its forms is the rule in
the eternal conflict of living things! From the lowest to the highest,
every producer is exploited by the unproductive. Man himself, whose
exceptional rank ought to raise him above such baseness, excels in this
ravening lust. He says to himself that business means getting hold of
other people's cash, even as the Gnat says to herself that business
means getting hold of the Halictus' honey. And, to play the brigand
to better purpose, he invents war, the art of killing wholesale and of
doing with glory that which, when done on a smaller scale, leads to the
gallows.

Shall we never behold the realization of that sublime vision which is
sung on Sundays in the smallest village-church: Gloria in excelsis Deo,
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis! If war affected humanity
alone, perhaps the future would have peace in store for us, seeing that
generous minds are working for it with might and main; but the scourge
also rages among the lower animals, which in their obstinate way,
will never listen to reason. Once the evil is laid down as a general
condition, it perhaps becomes incurable. Life in the future, it is to be
feared, will be what it is to-day, a perpetual massacre.

Whereupon, by a desperate effort of the imagination, one pictures to
oneself a giant capable of juggling with the planets. He is irresistible
strength; he is also law and justice. He knows of our battles, our
butcheries, our farm-burnings, our town-burnings, our brutal triumphs;
he knows our explosives, our shells, our torpedo-boats, our ironclads
and all our cunning engines of destruction; he k