PRIMITIVE BEES 



279 



stricken and solitary she selects a hollow stem, a 

 mortar or an earthen crevice, and there lines the hollow 

 with a few irregular cells, enveloped in silk spun from 

 her mouth. These she stores with a little wet honey 

 and with pollen, which she scrapes into her mouth 

 with her feet and then carries in her stomach, and 

 soon after perishes. 



The reason why Prosopis is interesting lies in that 

 significance which gives to all antiquities their real value. 

 Dominance, vigour, high and complex organisation 

 appeal to us at once, for of such qualities our own 

 civilisations partake. But it is not in these manifesta- 

 tions that we gain insight into the history of the race. 

 We may realise the qualities that have determined its 

 distinguishing character, and the complex factors that 

 have modelled its political life, but the source from 

 which it sprung is hidden from us by a thousand years 

 of interwoven crossings of clan and clan, the battles of 

 kites and crows, the dominance of one line of policy 

 after another, the gradual disentanglement of the 

 stablest form of government to suit, now one period, 

 now another. To understand fully the genius of the 

 people we have to go back to its origins, to the rude 

 forefathers with their primitive strength, grace, or 

 enterprise, and so ultimately to the cave-dwellers, the 

 early hunters and artists. The neglected troglodytes, 

 unimpressive, too often extinct and unavailable, are 

 those races which would help us most. But these we 

 have exterminated or decimated, and such truly original 

 knowledge as they alone possess is too often lost to us 



