Her mole-hills, those humble mounds any two of which would go easily into a Hen's egg, rise innumerous in my path, the path by the almond-trees which is the happy hunting-ground of my curiosity to-day. This path is a ribbon of road three paces wide, worn into ruts by the Mule's hoofs and the wheels of the farm-carts. A coppice of holm-oaks shelters it from the north wind. In this Eden with its well-caked soil, its warmth and quiet, the little Halictus has multiplied her mole-hills to such a degree that I cannot take a step without crushing some of them. The accident is not serious: the miner, safe underground, will be able to scramble up the crumbling sides of the mine and repair the threshold of the trampled home. I make a point of measuring the density of the population. I count from forty to sixty mole-hills on a surface of one square yard. The encampment is three paces wide and stretches over nearly three-quarters of a mile. How many Halicti are there in this Babylon? I do not venture to make the calculation. Speaking of the Zebra Halictus, I used the words hamlet, village, township; and the expressions were appropriate. Here the term city hardly meets the case. And what reason can we allege for these innumerable clusters? I can see but one: the charm of living together, which is the origin of society. Like mingles with like, without the rendering of any mutual service; and this is enough to summon the Early Halictus to the same way-side, even as the Herring and the Sardine assemble in the same waters. CHAPTER 14. THE HALICTI: PARTHENOGENESIS. The 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 corner, shut off from the rude gusts of the north-west wind.