ral epidemic, like a frenzied delirium. I should say nothing if the
site were lacking; but the tubes are there, close by, empty and quite
fit to receive the eggs. The Osmia refuses them, she prefers to plunder.
Is it from weariness, from a distaste for work after a period of fierce
activity? Not at all; for, when a row of cells has been stripped of its
contents, after the ravage and waste, she has to come back to ordinary
work, with all its burdens. The labour is not reduced; it is increased.
It would pay the Bee infinitely better, if she wants to continue
her laying, to make her home in an unoccupied tube. The Osmia thinks
differently. Her reasons for acting as she does escape me. Can there
be ill-conditioned characters among her, characters that delight in a
neighbour's ruin? There are among men.

In the privacy of her native haunts, the Osmia, I have no doubt, behaves
as in my crystal galleries. Towards the end of the building-operations,
she violates others' dwellings. By keeping to the first cell, which it
is not necessary to empty in order to reach the next, she can utilize
the provisions on the spot and shorten to that extent the longest part
of her work. As usurpations of this kind have had ample time to become
inveterate, to become inbred in the race, I ask for a descendant of the
Osmia who eats her grandmother's egg in order to establish her own egg.

This descendant I shall not be shown; but I may be told that she is in
process of formation. The outrages which I have described are preparing
a future parasite. The transformists dogmatize about the past and
dogmatize about the future, but as seldom as possible talk to us about
the present. Transformations have taken place, transformations will take
place; the pity of it is that they are not actually taking place. Of the
three tenses, one is lacking, the very one which directly interests us
and which alone is clear of the incubus of theory. This silence about
the present does not please me overmuch, scarcely more than the famous
picture of "The Crossing of the Red Sea" painted for a village chapel.
The artist had put upon the canvas a broad ribbon of brightest scarlet;
and that was all.

'Yes, that's the Red Sea,' said the priest, examining the masterpiece
before paying for it. 'That's the Red Sea, right enough; but where are
the Israelites?'

'They have passed,' replied the painter.

'And the Egyptians?'

'They are on the way.'

Transformations have pas