goes and gathers her cementing-powder on the
adjoining high-road, the metal of which consists of broken flint-stones,
and very seldom uses the red earth under the pebble supporting the
nest. This choice is apparently dictated by the fact that the chemical
properties of the former are more likely to produce a solid structure.
The lime of the road, mixed with saliva, yields a harder cement than red
clay would do. At any rate, the Chalicodoma's nest is more or less
white because of the source of its materials. When a red speck, a few
millimetres wide, appears on this pale background, it is a sure sign
that a Stelis has been that way. Open the cell that lies under the red
stain: we shall find the parasite's numerous family established there.
The rusty spot is an infallible indication that the dwelling has been
violated: at least, it is so in my neighbourhood, where the soil is as I
have described.

We see the Stelis, therefore, at first a rabid miner, using her
mandibles against the rock; next a kneader of clay and a plasterer
restoring broken ceilings. Her trade does not seem one of the least
arduous. Now what did she do before she took to parasitism? Judging from
her appearance, the transformists tell us that she was an Anthidium,
that is to say, she used to gather the soft cotton-wool from the dry
stalks of the lanate plants and fashion it into wallets, in which to
heap up the pollen-dust which she gleaned from the flowers by means of
a brush carried on her abdomen. Or else, springing from a genus akin
to the cotton-workers, she used to build resin partitions in the spiral
stairway of a dead Snail. Such was the trade driven by her ancestors.

Really! So, to avoid slow and painful work, to achieve an easy life, to
give herself the leisure favourable to the settlement of her family,
the erstwhile cotton-presser or collector of resin-drops took to gnawing
hardened cement! She who once sipped the nectar of flowers made up her
mind to chew concrete! Why, the poor wretch toils at her filing like a
galley-slave! She spends more time in ripping up a cell than it would
take her to make a cotton wallet and fill it with food. If she really
meant to progress, to do better in her own interest and that of her
family, by abandoning the delicate occupations of the old days, we must
confess that she has made a strange mistake. The mistake would be no
greater if fingers accustomed to fancy-weaving were to lay aside velvet
and silk and p