's part. In July, a second generation of the Halictus is
procreated. The Gnat, reduced on her side to a single brood, remains
in the pupa state and awaits the spring of the following year before
effecting her transformation. The honey-gather resumes her work in her
native village; she avails herself of the pits and cells constructed in
the spring, saving no little time thereby. The whole elaborate structure
has remained in good condition. It needs but a few repairs to make the
old house habitable.

Now what would happen if the Bee, so scrupulous in matters of
cleanliness, were to find a pupa in the cell which she is sweeping? She
would treat the cumbersome object as she would a piece of old plaster.
It would be no more to her than any other refuse, a bit of gravel,
which, seized with the mandibles, crushed perhaps, would be sent to join
the rubbish-heap outside. Once removed from the soil and exposed to the
inclemencies of the weather, the pupa would inevitably perish.

I admire this intelligent foresight of the maggot, which forgoes the
comfort of the moment for the security of the future. Two dangers
threaten it: to be immured in a casket whence the Fly can never issue;
or else to die out of doors, in the unkindly air, when the Bee sweeps
out the restored cells. To avoid this twofold peril, it decamps before
the door is closed, before the July Halictus sets her house in order.

Let us now see what comes of the parasite's intrusion. In the course
of June, when peace is established in the Halictus' home, I dig up
my largest village, comprising some fifty burrows in all. None of the
sorrows of this underworld shall escape me. There are four of us
engaged in sifting the excavated earth through our fingers. What one
has examined another takes up and examines; and then another and another
yet. The returns are heartrending. We do not succeed in finding one
single nymph of the Halictus. The whole of the populous city has
perished; and its place has been taken by the Gnat. There is a glut
of that individual's pupae. I collect them in order to trace their
evolution.

The year runs its course; and the little russet kegs, into which the
original maggots have hardened and contracted, remain stationary. They
are seeds endowed with latent life. The heats of July do not rouse them
from their torpor. In that month, the period of the second generation
of the Halictus, there is a sort of truce of God: the parasite rests and
the Bee