crifices the worker for the idler's
benefit. What have we done, we and the insects, to be ground with
sovran indifference under the mill-stone of such wretchedness? Oh, what
terrible, what heart-rending questions the Mason-bee's misfortunes would
bring to my lips, if I gave free scope to my sombre thoughts! But let
us avoid these useless whys and keep within the province of the mere
recorder.

There are some ten of them plotting the ruin of the peaceable and
industrious Bee; and I do not know them all. Each has her own tricks,
her own art of injury, her own exterminating tactics, so that no part of
the Mason's work may escape destruction. Some seize upon the victuals,
others feed on the larvae, others again convert the dwelling to their
own use. Everything has to submit: cell, provisions, scarce-weaned
nurselings.

The stealers of food are the Stelis-wasp (Stelis nasuta) and the
Dioxys-bee (Dioxys cincta). I have already said how, in the Mason's
absence, the Stelis perforates the dome of cell after cell, lays her
eggs there and afterwards repairs the breach with a mortar made of red
earth, which at once betrays the parasite's presence to a watchful eye.
The Stelis, who is much smaller than the Chalicodoma, finds enough food
in a single cell for the rearing of several of her grubs. The mother
lays a number of eggs, which I have seen vary between the extremes of
two and twelve, on the surface, next to the Mason's egg, which itself
undergoes no outrage whatever.

Things do not go so badly at first. The feasters swim--it is the
only word--in the midst of plenty; they eat and digest like brothers.
Presently, times become hard for the hostess' son; the food decreases,
dearth sets in; and at length not an atom remains, although the Mason's
larva has attained at most a quarter of its growth. The others, more
expeditious feeders, have exhausted the victuals long before the victim
has finished his normal repast. The swindled grub shrivels up and dies,
while the gorged larvae of the Stelis begin to spin their strong little
brown cocoons, pressed close together and lumped into one mass, so as
to make the best use of the scanty space in the crowded dwelling. Should
you inspect the cell later, you will find, between the heaped cocoons
on the wall, a little dried-up corpse. It is the larva that was such an
object of care to the mother Mason. The efforts of the most laborious of
lives have ended in this lamentable relic. It has happ