which
are each of them sealed with a thick mortar plug. And it is the honey
of these well-guarded chambers that has to be reached by piercing a wall
almost as hard as rock.

The parasite pluckily sets to; the idler becomes a glutton for work.
Atom by atom, she perforates the general enclosure and scoops out a
shaft just sufficient for her passage; she reaches the lid of the cell
and gnaws it until the coveted provisions appear in sight. It is a slow
and painful process, in which the feeble Stelis wears herself out, for
the mortar is much the same as Roman cement in hardness. I myself find
a difficulty in breaking it with the point of my knife. What patient
effort, then, the task requires from the parasite, with her tiny
pincers!

I do not know exactly how long the Stelis takes to make her
entrance-shaft, as I have never had the opportunity or rather the
patience to follow the work from start to finish; but what I do know is
that a Chalicodoma of the Walls, incomparably larger and stronger than
the parasite, when demolishing before my eyes the lid of a cell sealed
only the day before, was unable to complete her undertaking in one
afternoon. I had to come to her assistance in order to discover,
before the end of the day, the object of her housebreaking. When the
Mason-bee's mortar has once set, its resistance is that of stone. Now
the Stelis has not only to pierce the lid of the honey-store; she must
also pierce the general casing of the nest. What a time it must take her
to get through such a task, a gigantic one for her poor tools!

It is done at last, after infinite labour. The honey appears. The Stelis
slips through and, on the surface of the provisions, side by side
with the Chalicodoma's eggs, the number varying from time to time. The
victuals will be the common property of all the new arrivals, whether
the son of the house or strangers.

The violated dwelling cannot remain as it is, exposed to marauders from
without; the parasite must herself wall up the breach which she has
contrived. The quondam housebreaker becomes a builder. At the foot
of the pebble, the Stelis collects a little of that red earth which
characterizes our stony plateaus grown with lavender and thyme; she
makes it into mortar by wetting it with saliva; and with the pellets
thus prepared she fills up the entrance-shaft, displaying all the care
and art of a regular master-mason. Only, the work clashes in colour with
the Chalicodoma's. The Bee