, hardly the size of an average pea. Such a ration is insufficient
for the Dioxys. I have described her as a waster of food when her larva
is established, according to custom, in the cell of the Mason-bee. This
description no longer applies; not in the very least. Inadvertently
straying to the Osmia's table, the larva has no excuse for turning up
its nose; it does not leave part of the food to go bad; it eats up the
lot without having had enough.

This famine-stricken refectory can give us nothing but an abortion. As
a matter of fact, the Dioxys subjected to this niggardly test does not
die, for the parasite must have a tough constitution to enable it to
face the disastrous hazards which lie in wait for it; but it attains
barely half its ordinary dimensions, which means one-eighth of its
normal bulk. To see it thus diminished, we are surprised at its
tenacious vitality, which enables it to reach the adult form in spite
of the extreme deficiency of food. Meanwhile, this adult is still
the Dioxys; there is no change of any kind in her shape or colouring.
Moreover, the two sexes are represented; this family of pigmies has its
males and females. Dearth and the farinaceous mess in the Osmia's cell
has had no more influence over species or sex than abundance and flowing
honey in the Chalicodoma's home.

The same may be said of the Spotted Sapyga (S. punctata (A parasitic
Wasp. Cf. "The Mason-bees": chapters 9 and 10.--Translator's Note.)),
which, a parasite of the Three-pronged Osmia, a denizen of the bramble,
and of the Golden Osmia, an occupant of empty Snail-shells, strays into
the house of the Tiny Osmia (O. parvula (This bee makes her home in
the brambles. Cf. "Bramble-dwellers and Others": chapters 2 and
3.--Translator's Note.)), where, for lack of sufficient food, it does
not attain half its normal size.

A Leucopsis (Cf. "The Mason-bees": chapter 11.--Translator's Note.)
inserts her eggs through the cement wall of our three Chalicodomae. I
know her under two names. When she comes from the Chalicodoma of the
Pebbles or Walls, whose opulent larva saturates her with food, she
deserves by her large size the name of Leucopsis gigas, which Fabricius
bestows upon her; when she comes from the Chalicodoma of the Sheds, she
deserves no more than the name of L. grandis, which is all that
Klug grants her. With a smaller ration "the giant" is to some degree
diminished and becomes no more than "the large." When she comes from
th