CHAPTER XIV 



THE HALICTI : PARTHENOGENESIS 



'T^HE Halictus opens up another question, 

 -*- connected with one of life's obscurest 

 problems. Let us go back, five-and-twenty 

 years. I am living at Orange, My house 

 stands alone among the fields. On the other 

 side of the wall enclosing our yard, which 

 faces due south, is a narrow path overgrown 

 with couch-grass. The sun beats full upon 

 it; and the glare reflected from the whitewash 

 of the wall turns it into a little tropical cor- 

 ner, shut off from the rude gusts of the north- 

 west wind. 



Here the Cats come to take their after- 

 noon nap, with their eyes half-closed; here 

 the children come, with Bull, the house-dog; 

 here also come the haymakers, at the hottest 

 time of the day, to sit and take their meal and 

 whet their scythes in the shade of the plane- 

 tree; here the women pass up and down with 

 their rakes, after the hay-harvest, to glean 

 what they can on the niggardly carpet of the 



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