sed, transformations are on the way. For mercy's
sake, cannot they show us transformations in the act? Must the facts of
the past and the facts of the future necessarily exclude the facts of
the present? I fail to understand.

I call for a descendant of the Chalicodoma and a descendant of the Osmia
who have robbed their neighbours with gusto, when occasion offered,
since the origin of their respective races, and who are working
industriously to create a parasite happy in doing nothing. Have they
succeeded? No. Will they succeed? Yes, people maintain. For the moment,
nothing. The Osmiae and Chalicodomae of to-day are what they were when
the first trowel of cement or mud was mixed. Then how many ages does it
take to form a parasite? Too many, I fear, for us not to be discouraged.

If the sayings of the theorists are well-founded, going on strike and
living by shifts was not always enough to assure parasitism. In certain
cases, the animal must have had to change its diet, to pass from live
prey to vegetarian fare, which would entirely subvert its most essential
characteristics. What should we say to the Wolf giving up mutton and
browsing on grass, in obedience to the dictates of idleness? The boldest
would shrink from such an absurd assumption. And yet transformism leads
us straight to it.

Here is an example: in July, I split some bramble-stems in which Osmia
tridentata has built her nests. In the long series of cells, the lower
already hold the Osmia's cocoons, while the upper contain the larva
which has nearly finished consuming its provisions and the topmost
show the victuals untouched, with the Osmia's egg upon them. It is a
cylindrical egg, rounded at both extremities, of a transparent white
and measuring four to five millimetres in length. (.156 to.195
inch.--Translator's Note.) It lies slantwise, one end of it resting on
the food and the other sticking up at some distance above the honey.
Now, by multiplying my visits to the fresh cells, I have on several
occasions made a very valuable discovery. On the free end of the Osmia's
egg, another egg is fixed; an egg quite different in shape, white and
transparent like the first, but much smaller and narrower, blunt at
one end and tapering into a rather sharp point at the other. It is
two millimetres long by half a millimetre wide. (.078 and.019
inch.--Translator's Note.) It is undeniably the egg of a parasite, a
parasite which compels my attention by its curious method