The Mason-bees 



that his first convictions were based on a most 

 ludicrous foundation. 



A piece of advice to beginners : you will go 

 wrong a thousand times for once that you are 

 right, if, when anxious to obtain a premature 

 sight of the probable habits of an insect, you 

 take mimesis as your guide. With mimesis 

 above all, it is wise, when the law says that 

 a thing is black, first to enquire whether it 

 does not happen to be white. 



Let us go on to more serious subjects and 

 enquire into parasitism itself, without troub- 

 ling any longer about the costume of the para- 

 site. According to etymology, a parasite is 

 one who eats another's bread, one who lives 

 on the provisions of others. Entomology 

 often alters this term from its real meaning. 

 Thus it describes as parasites the Chrysis, the 

 Mutilla, the Anthrax, the Leucospis, all of 

 whom feed their family not on the provisions 

 amassed by others, but on the very larvae 

 which have consumed those provisions, their 

 actual property. When the Tachinae have 

 succeeded in laying their eggs on the game 

 warehoused by the Bembex, the burrower's 

 home Is invaded by real parasites, in the strict 

 sense of the word. Around the heap of Gad- 



