ores
her shaft there is soon a second one busy with hers; a third arrives,
followed by another and others yet, until the little mounds often touch
one another, while at times they number as many as fifty on a surface of
less than a square yard.

One would be inclined, at first sight, to say that these groups are
accounted for by the insect's recollection of its birthplace, by the
fact that the villagers, after dispersing during the winter, return to
their hamlet. But it is not thus that things happen: the Halictus scorns
to-day the place that once suited her. I never see her occupy the same
patch of ground for two years in succession. Each spring she needs new
quarters. And there are plenty of them.

Can this mustering of the Halicti be due to a wish to resume the old
intercourse with their friends and relations? Do the natives of the same
burrow, of the same hamlet, recognize one another? Are they inclined to
do their work among themselves rather than in the company of strangers?
There is nothing to prove it, nor is there anything to disprove it.
Either for this reason or for others, the Halictus likes to keep with
her neighbours.

This propensity is pretty frequent among peace-lovers, who, needing
little nourishment, have no cause to fear competition. The others, the
big eaters, take possession of estates, of hunting-grounds from which
their fellows are excluded. Ask a Wolf his opinion of a brother Wolf
poaching on his preserves. Man himself, the chief of consumers, makes
for himself frontiers armed with artillery; he sets up posts at the foot
of which one says to the other:

'Here's my side, there's yours. That's enough: now we'll pepper each
other.'

And the rattle of the latest explosives ends the colloquy.

Happy are the peace-lovers. What do they gain by their mustering? With
them it is not a defensive system, a concerted effort to ward off the
common foe. The Halictus does not care about her neighbour's affairs.
She does not visit another's burrow; she does not allow others to
visit hers. She has her tribulations, which she endures alone; she is
indifferent to the tribulations of her kind. She stands aloof from the
strife of her fellows. Let each mind her own business and leave things
at that.

But company has its attractions. He lives twice who watches the life of
others. Individual activity gains by the sight of the general activity;
the animation of each one derives fresh warmth from the fire of the