e his questions about the whys and wherefores
of origins. Answer follows answer, is proclaimed true to-day and
recognized as false tomorrow; and the goddess Isis continues veiled.

CHAPTER 10. THE TRIBULATIONS OF THE MASON-BEE.

To illustrate the methods of those who batten on others' goods, the
plunderers who know no rest till they have wrought the destruction of
the worker, it would be difficult to find a better instance than the
tribulations suffered by the Chalicodoma of the Walls. The Mason
who builds on the pebbles may fairly boast of being an industrious
workwoman. Throughout the month of May, we see her black squads, in the
full heat of the sun, digging with busy teeth in the mortar-quarry of
the road hard by. So great is her zeal that she hardly moves out of
the way of the passer-by; more than one allows herself to be crushed
underfoot, absorbed as she is in collecting her cement.

The hardest and driest spots, which still retain the compactness
imparted by the steam-roller, are the favourite veins; and the work of
making the pellet is slow and painful. It is scraped up atom by atom;
and, by means of saliva, turned into mortar then and there. When it is
all well kneaded and there is enough to make a load, the Mason sets off
with an impetuous flight, in a straight line, and makes for her pebble,
a few hundred paces away. The trowel of fresh mortar is soon spent,
either in adding another storey to the turret-shaped edifice, or in
cementing into the wall lumps of gravel that give it greater solidity.
The journeys in search of cement are renewed until the structure attains
the regulation height. Without a moment's rest, the Bee returns a
hundred times to the stone-yard, always to the one spot recognized as
excellent.

The victuals are now collected: honey and flower-dust. If there is a
pink carpet of sainfoin anywhere in the neighbourhood, 'tis there that
the Mason goes plundering by preference, though it cost her a four
hundred yards' journey every time. Her crop swells with honeyed
exudations, her belly is floured with pollen. Back to the cell, which
slowly fills; and back straightway to the harvest-field. And all day
long, with not a sign of weariness, the same activity is maintained as
long as the sun is high enough. When it is late, if the house is not
yet closed, the Bee retires to her cell to spend the night there,
head downwards, tip of her abdomen outside, a habit foreign to the
Chalicodoma of the