we make generalities, we prepare to open neighbouring mysteries with the same key: illusion. One always has to begin again at the start. Thus the sciences of observation become increasingly obscure as one penetrates further into the labyrinth. Among wasps and hornets there is nothing resembling polygamy, even potentially. A fecundated female after passing the winter, constructs, by herself, the first foundations of a nest, lays the eggs, from which sexless individuals are born; these workers then assume all material labours, finish the nest, watch the larvæ which the female continues to produce. These are now males and females: after coupling the males die, then the workers, the females become languid, those who survive will found as many new tribes. The generation of bumble-bees is more curious, the differentiation of castes more complicated. There are among them, males, workers, small females, great females. A great female, having passed the winter, founds a nest in the earth, often in moss (there is a sort called the moss bee), she constructs a wax comb, lays. From the first eggs come workers who, as in wasps, construct the definitive nest, pillage, make honey, and being more industrious than the other sort of bees who fear dampness, they scour the country long after sunset. After the workers, the little females see light; they have no function save laying, without fecundation, the eggs which will hatch male. Simultaneously the queen produces great females who will soon couple with the males. Then, as with wasps, all the colony dies except the fecundated great females, by whom the cycle will recommence, the following spring.