ough on my own
account; I will call upon the animals themselves, more eloquent than I.

Are we so very sure that parasitic habits come from a love of inaction?
Did the parasite become what he is because he found it excellent to
do nothing? Is repose so great an advantage to him that he abjured his
ancient customs in order to obtain it? Well, since I have been studying
the Bee who endows her family with the property of others, I have not
yet seen anything in her that points to slothfulness. On the contrary,
the parasite leads a laborious life, harder than that of the worker.
Watch her on a slope blistered by the sun. How busy she is, how
anxious! How briskly she covers every inch of the radiant expanse, how
indefatigable she is in her endless quests; in her visits, which are
generally fruitless! Before coming upon a nest that suits her, she has
dived a hundred times into cavities of no value, into galleries not
yet victualled. And then, however kindly her host, the parasite is not
always well received in the hostelry. No, it is not all roses in her
trade. The expenditure of time and labour which she finds necessary in
order to house an egg may easily equal or even exceed that of the worker
in building her cell and filling it with honey. That industrious one has
regular and continuous work, an excellent condition for success in her
egg-laying; the other has a thankless and precarious task, at the
mercy of a thousand accidents which endanger the great undertaking of
installing the eggs. One has only to watch the prolonged hesitation of
a Coelioxys seeking for the Leaf-cutters' cells to recognize that
the usurpation of another's nest is not effected without serious
difficulties. If she turned parasite in order to make the rearing of
her offspring easier and more prosperous, certainly she was very
ill-inspired. Instead of rest, hard work; instead of a flourishing
family, a meagre progeny.

To generalities, which are necessarily vague, we will add some precise
facts. A certain Stelis (Stelis nasuta, LATR.) is a parasite of the
Mason-bee of the Walls. When the Chalicodoma has finished building
her dome of cells upon her pebble, the parasite appears, makes a long
inspection of the outside of the home and proposes, puny as she is,
to introduce her eggs into this cement fortress. Everything is most
carefully closed: a layer of rough plaster, at least two-fifths of an
inch thick, entirely covers the central accumulation of cells,