Rationing According to Sex 



dom enjoy a free meal. Some stray into the 

 houses of hosts whose victuals do not suit 

 them; others find only a ration quite insuffi- 

 cient for their needs; others — and these are 

 very numerous — find nothing at all. What 

 misadventures, what disappointments do 

 these needy creatures suffer, unaccustomed as 

 they are to work! Let me relate some of 

 their misfortunes, gleaned at random. 



The Girdled Dioxys (D. cincta) loves the 

 ample honey-stores of the Chalicodoma of 

 the Pebbles. There she finds abundant 

 food, so abundant that she cannot eat it all. 

 I have already passed censure on this waste. ^ 

 Now a little Osmia (O. cyanoxantha, P£ 

 REZ) makes her nest in the Mason's de- 

 serted cells; and this Bee, a victim of her 

 ill-omened dwelling, also harbours the Di- 

 oxys. This is a manifest error on the para- 

 site's part. The nest of the Chalicodoma, 

 the hemisphere of mortar on its pebble, is 

 what she is looking for, to confide her eggs 

 to it. But the nest is now occupied by a 

 stranger, by the Osmia, a circumstance un- 

 known to the Dioxys, who comes steahng up 

 to lay her egg in the mother's absence. The 

 dome is familiar to her. She could not know 

 it better if she had built it herself. Here 



1 Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. x. — Translator's Note, 

 235 



