In September appears the second generation, comprising both males and females. I find both sexes wassailing on the flowers, especially the Compositae, the centauries and thistles. They are not harvesting now: they are refreshing themselves, holding high holiday, teasing one another. It is the wedding-time. Yet another fortnight and the males will disappear, henceforth useless. The part of the idlers is played. Only the industrious ones remain, the impregnated females, who go through the winter and set to work in April. I do not know their exact haunt during the inclement season. I expected them to return to their native burrow, an excellent dwelling for the winter, one would think. Excavations made in January showed me my mistake. The old homes are empty, are falling to pieces owing to the prolonged effect of the rains. The Zebra Halictus has something better than these muddy hovels: she has snug corners in the stone-heaps, hiding-places in the sunny walls and many other convenient habitations. And so the natives of a village become scattered far and wide. In April, the scattered ones reassemble from all directions. On the well-flattened garden-paths a choice is made of the site for their common labours. Operations soon begin. Close to the first who bores her shaft there is soon a second one busy with hers; a third arrives, followed by another and others yet, until the little mounds often touch one another, while at times they number as many as fifty on a surface of less than a square yard. One would be inclined, at first sight, to say that these groups are accounted for by the insect's recollection of its birthplace, by the fact that the villagers, after dispersing during the winter, return to their hamlet. But it is not thus that things happen: the Halictus scorns to-day the place that once suited her. I never see her occupy the same patch of ground for two years in succession. Each spring she needs new quarters. And there are plenty of them. Can this mustering of the Halicti be due to a wish to resume the old intercourse with their friends and relations? Do the natives of the same burrow, of the same hamlet, recognize one another? Are they inclined to do their work among themselves rather than in the company of strangers? There is nothing to prove it, nor is there anything to disprove it. Either for this reason or for others, the Halictus likes to keep with her neighbours. This propensity is pretty frequent among peace-lovers, who, needing little nourishment, have no cause to fear competition. The others, the big eaters, take possession of estates, of hunting-grounds from which their fellows are excluded. Ask a Wolf his opinion of a brother Wolf poaching on his preserves. Man himself, the chief of consumers, makes for himself frontiers armed with artillery; he sets up posts at the foot of which one says to the other: 'Here's my side, there's yours. That's enough: now we'll pepper each other.'