CHAPTER VIII 



PARASITES 



TN August or September, let us go into some 

 -■- gorge with bare and sun-scorched sides. 

 When we find a slope well-baked by the sum- 

 mer heat, a quiet corner with the temperature 

 of an oven, we will call a halt : there is a fine 

 harvest to be gathered there. This tropical 

 land is the native soil of a host of Wasps and 

 Bees, some of them busily piling the house- 

 hold provisions in underground warehouses: 

 here a stack of Weevils, Locusts or Spiders, 

 there a whole assortment of Flies, Bees, 

 Mantes or Caterpillars, while others are stor- 

 ing up honey in membranous wallets or clay 

 pots, or else in cottony bags or urns made with 

 the punched-out disks of leaves. 



With the industrious folk who go quietly 

 about their business, the labourers, masons, 

 foragers, warehousers, mingles the parasitic 

 tribe, the prowlers hurrying from one home 

 to the next, lying in wait at the doors, watch- 

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