The Progress of the Race 



at the expense of the working type of 

 its race/ 



Among the bees, however, which are 

 somewhat too arbitrarily termed the " sol- 

 itary Apidae," the social instinct already 

 is smouldering, like a flame crushed be- 

 neath the overwhelming weight of matter 

 that stifles all primitive life. And here 

 and there, in unexpected directions, as 

 though reconnoitring, with timid and 

 sometimes fantastic outbursts, it will 

 succeed in piercing the mass that op- 



^ The humble-bees, for instance, have the Psithyri 

 as parasites, while the Stelites live on the Anthidia. 

 <* As regards the frequent identity of the parasite with 

 its victim," M. J. Perez very justly remarks in his book 

 "The Bees," "one must necessarily admit that the 

 two genera are only different forms of the same type, 

 and are united to each other by the closest affinity. And 

 to naturalists who believe in the theory of evolution 

 this relationship is not purely ideal, but real. The 

 parasitic genus must be regarded as merely a branch 

 of the foraging genus, having lost its foraging organs 

 because of its adaptation to parasitic life." 



393 



