The Mason-bees 



The word "mimesis" has been invented for 

 the express purpose of designating the ani- 

 mal's supposed faculty of adapting itself to 

 its environment by imitating the objects 

 around it, at least in the matter of colouring. 

 We are told that it uses this faculty to baffle 

 its foes, or else to approach its prey without 

 alarming it. Finding itself the better for this 

 dissimulation, a source of prosperity indeed, 

 each race, sifted by the struggle for life, is 

 considered to have preserved those best- 

 endowed with mimetic powers and to have 

 allowed the others to become extinct, thus 

 gradually converting into a fixed characteristic 

 what at first was but a casual acquisition. The 

 Lark became earth-coloured in order to hide 

 himself from the eyes of the bird of prey 

 when pecking in the fields; the Common Liz- 

 ard adopted a grass-green tint in order to 

 blend with the foliage of the thickets in which 

 he lurks; the Cabbage-caterpillar guarded 

 against the bird's beak by taking the colour 

 of the plant on which it feeds. And so with 

 the rest. 



In my callow youth, these comparisons 

 would have interested me : I was just ripe for 

 that kind of science. In the evenings, on the 



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