208 THE LIFE AND LOVE OF THE INSECT 



in the form of pupaj, which I collect in order to trace their 

 evolution. 



The year runs its course ; and the little russet 

 barrels, into which the original maggots have hardened 

 and contracted, remain stationary. They are seeds en- 

 dowed with latent life. The heats of July do not rouse 

 them from their torpor. In that month, the period of 

 the second generation of the Halictus, there is a sort of 

 truce of God : the parasite rests and the Bee works in 

 peace. If hostilities were to be resumed straight away, 

 as murderous in summer as they were in spring, the 

 progeny of the Halictus, over-endangered, might possibly 

 disappear. The lull of the second brood puts things in 

 order once more. 



In April, when Halictus Zebrus, in search of a good 

 place for her burrows, wanders with a wavering flight 

 through the garden-walks, the parasite, on its side, 

 hastens to hatch. Oh, the precise, the terrible agreement 

 betw^een those two calendars, the calendar of the perse- 

 cutor and the persecuted ! At the very moment when 

 the Bee comes out, here is the Gnat : her work of extermi- 

 nation by famine is ready to begin all over again. 



Were this an isolated case, one's thoughts would not 

 dwell upon it : an Halictus more or less in the world 

 makes little difference in the general balance. But, alas, 

 brigandage in all its forms is the rule in the eternal con- 

 fhct of Uving things ! From the lowest to the liighest, 

 every producer is imposed upon by the unproductive. 

 Man himself, whose exceptional rank ought to raise him 

 above such pettiness, excels in this ferocious eagerness. 

 He says to himself that business means getting hold of 

 the money of other people, even as the Gnat says to herself 

 that business means getting hold of the Halictus' honey. 



