part of the returning insect. Never before have so
many sweepings accumulated in its warehouse. The Bee picks out the bits
of straw, one by one, to the very last, and each time goes and gets rid
of them at a distance. The effort is out of all proportion to the work:
I see the Bee soar above the nearest plane-tree, to a height of thirty
feet, and fly away beyond it to rid herself of her burden, a mere atom.
She fears lest she should litter the place by dropping her bit of straw
on the ground, under the nest. A thing like that must be carried very
far away.

I place upon the honey-paste a Mason-bee's egg which I myself saw
laid in an adjacent cell. The Bee picks it out and throws it away at a
distance, as she did with the straws just now. There are two inferences
to be drawn from this, both extremely interesting. In the first place,
that precious egg, for whose future the Bee labours so indefatigably,
becomes a valueless, cumbersome, hateful thing when it belongs to
another. Her own egg is everything; the egg of her next door neighbour
is nothing. It is flung on the dust-heap like any bit of rubbish. The
individual, so zealous on behalf of her family, displays an abominable
indifference for the rest of her kind. Each one for himself. In the
second place, I ask myself, without as yet being able to find an answer
to my question, how certain parasites go to work to give their larva the
benefit of the provisions accumulated by the Mason-bee. If they decide
to lay their egg on the victuals in the open cell, the Bee, when she
sees it, will not fail to cast it out; if they decide to lay after the
owner, they cannot do so, for she blocks up the door as soon as her
laying is done. This curious problem must be reserved for future
investigation. (Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 to 4; also later
chapters in the present volume.--Translator's Note.)

Lastly, I stick into the paste a bit of straw nearly an inch long and
standing well out above the rim of the cell. The insect extracts it by
dint of great efforts, dragging it away from one side; or else, with
the help of its wings, it drags it from above. It darts away with the
honey-smeared straw and gets rid of it at a distance, after flying over
the plane-tree.

This is where things begin to get complicated. I have said that, when
the time comes for laying, the Mason-bee arrives with a pellet of mortar
wherewith immediately to make a door to the house. The insect, with its
fr