The Progress of the Race
from matter, it is still quite material. It is cold, hunger, fear, transformed into something that as yet has no shape. It crawls vaguely around great dangers, around the long nights, the approach of winter, of an equivocal sleep which almost is death…
The Xylocopæ are powerful bees which worm their nest in dry wood. Their life is solitary always. Towards the end of summer, however, some individuals of a particular species, the Xylocopa Cyanescens, may be found huddled together in a shivering group, on a stalk of asphodel, to spend the winter in common. Among the Xylocopæ this tardy fraternity is exceptional, but among the Ceratinæ, which are of their nearest kindred, it has become a constant habit. The idea is germinating. It halts immediately; and hitherto
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