roceed to handle the quarryman's blocks or to break stones
on the roadside.

No, the animal does not commit the folly of voluntarily embittering its
lot; it does not, in obedience to the promptings of idleness, give up
one condition to embrace another and a more irksome; should it blunder
for once, it will not inspire its posterity with a wish to persevere in
a costly delusion. No, the Stelis never abandoned the delicate art of
cotton-weaving to break down walls and to grind cement, a class of work
far too unattractive to efface the memory of the joys of harvesting amid
the flowers. Indolence has not evolved her from an Anthidium. She has
always been what she is to-day: a patient artificer in her own line, a
steady worker at the task that has fallen to her share.

That hurried mother who first, in remote ages, broke into the abode
of her fellows to secure a home for her eggs found this unscrupulous
method, so you tell us, very favourable to the success of her race, by
virtue of its economy of time and trouble. The impression left by this
new policy was so profound that heredity bequeathed it to posterity,
in ever-increasing proportions, until at last parasitic habits became
definitely fixed. The Chalicodoma of the Sheds, followed by the
Three-horned Osmia, will teach us what to think of this conjecture.

I have described in an earlier chapter my installation of
Chalicodoma-hives against the walls of a porch facing the south. Here,
on a level with my head, placed so that they can easily be observed,
hang some tiles removed from the neighbouring roofs in winter, together
with their enormous nests and their occupants. Every May, for five or
six years in succession, I have assiduously watched the works of
my Mason-bees. From the mass of my notes on the subject I take the
following experiments which bear upon the matter under discussion.

Long ago, when I used to scatter a handful of Chalicodomae some way from
home, in order to study their capacity for finding their nest again,
I noticed that, if they were too long absent, the laggards found their
cells closed on their return. Neighbours had taken the opportunity to
lay their eggs there, after finishing the building and stocking it with
provisions. The abandoned property benefited another. On realizing
the usurpation, the Bee returning from her long journey soon consoled
herself for the mishap. She began to break the seals of some cell or
other, adjoining her own; the res