The Life of the Bee 
We have seen the unfortunate Prosopis 
silently bearing her solitary little destiny 
in the midst of this vast universe charged 
with terrible forces. A certain number 
of her sisters, belonging to species already 
more skilful and better supplied with 
utensils, such as the well-clad Colletes, 
or the marvellous cutter of rose-leaves, 
the Megachile Centuncularis, live -in 
an isolation no less profound; and if 
by chance some creature attach itself to 
them, and share their dwelling, it will 
either be an enemy, or, more often, a 
parasite. 
For the world of bees is peopled with 
phantoms stranger than our own; and 
many a species will thus have a kind of 
mysterious and inactive double, exactly 
similar to the victim it has selected, save 
only that its immemorial idleness has 
caused it to lose one by one its imple- 
ments of labour, and that it exists solely 
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