So the Mason's egg is exterminated. Was it really necessary in the Dioxys' interest? Not in the least. The hoard of provisions is too large for its requirements in a cell of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds; how much more so in a cell of the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles! She eats not a half, hardly a third of it. The rest remains as it was, untouched. We see here, in the destruction of the Mason's egg, a flagrant waste which aggravates the crime. Hunger excuses many things; for lack of food, the survivors on the raft of the Medusa indulged in a little cannibalism; but here there is enough food and to spare. When there is more than she needs, what earthly motive impels the Dioxys to destroy a rival in the germ stage? Why cannot she allow the larva, her mess-mate, to take advantage of the remains and afterwards to shift for itself as best it can? But no: the Mason-bee's offspring must needs be stupidly sacrificed on the top of provisions which will only grow mouldy and useless! I should be reduced to the gloomy lucubrations of a Schopenhauer if I once let myself begin on parasitism. Such is a brief sketch of the two parasites of the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles, true parasites, consumers of provisions hoarded on behalf of others. Their crimes are not the bitterest tribulations of the Mason-bee. If the first starves the Mason's grub to death, if the second makes it perish in the egg, there are others who have a more pitiable ending in store for the worker's family. When the Bee's grub, all plump and fat and greasy, has finished its provisions and spun its cocoon wherein to sleep the slumber akin to death, the necessary period of preparation for its future life, these other enemies hasten to the nests whose fortifications are powerless against their hideously ingenious methods. Soon on the sleeper's body lies a nascent grub which feasts in all security on the luscious fare. The traitors who attack the larvae in their lethargy are three in number: an Anthrax, a Leucopsis and a microscopic dagger-wearer. (Monodontomerus cupreus. For this and the Anthrax, cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 2 and 3. The Leucopsis is a Hymenopteron, the essay upon whom forms the concluding chapter of the present volume.--Translator's Note.) Their story deserves to be told without reticence; and I shall tell it later. For the moment, I merely mention the names of the three exterminators.