F you can imagine a tropical climate without trees and where the creatures that people it possess greater energy than those of a temperate zone, then you will have a fair idea of the conditions existing in the topsyturvy land of the cannibal bees.

A separate burrow, or mine is constructed by each female belonging to the general colony.

These tunnels are the homes of the bees; they are mines in which the domestic duties are carried on. They are excavated in various fashions, twisting and turning according to the conditions. of the ground. In all, the burrows may reach twenty-four inches in length, terminating in an elongated cell or chamber, twice the width of the passage leading to it. One or two short branches, also terminating in roomy chambers, may be found at various points near the

end of the shaft. These cells are nurseries where the young bees are reared and of which we shall hear more later.

Beside the entrance hole to the burrow, a second tunnel, about two inches in length, is sometimes excavated, which serves as a sentry box, in which the insect rests and guards the entrance to the main nest. It is amusing to see a bee from the colony lose its bearings and attempt to enter the wrong nest. The rightful owner rushes from her sentry box and pounces upon the intruder. Then amid loud buzzings, which are doubtless bee oaths of a fearful nature, the two roll about until one is either driven off or wounded by the other's sting.

But let us go back to the building of the burrow, which is a gigantic task for so small a creature. She must be engineer, laborer, drill, and steam shovel, if

When the excavation is finished, the insect at once turns her attention to storing the subterranean cells with proper food for her offspring; and here we shall bring to light the cannibalistic instincts of these mining bees. The majority of solitary bees and wasps feed their young upon inch worms, spiders, flies, or insects of an entirely different order. But not SO the miners; they. deliberately hunt out members of their own family, paralyzing them with their stings, and dragging them into the tunnels for their young to feast upon. As many as half a dozen victims may be packed into a single cell-tiny humble bees-green and blue flower bees, and sometimes even an. unfortunate miner that has been executed for daring to place her foot in the wrong doorway.

nature. More gruesome than the corpses lying in a morgue, they are; yet the cannibal gloats over her industry of murder, rushing eagerly in to inspect the contents of the cell a hundred times a day before laying her glistening oily yellow egg upon the mass of helpless flesh.

In a few days the young cannibals wriggle from the eggs, footless, whitish maggots and helpless against the slightest odds. Yet nature has provided for them in such a manner that they may attach themselves to superior creatures, who must lie motionless and submit to their

In a week the cells are packed from end to end with victims of her pitiless

suckling mouths

until the last cells of life pass into the bodies of the cannibals.

A single egg is laid upon the contents of each cell, and normally about fourteen days are required by the young

to gorge themselves into a state of torpor which lasts until the following spring. Then a wonderful transformation takes place. The motionless, fatty larva commences to assume a definite form.

Then comes color, darkening the head and thorax and throwing yellow bands about the abdomen; and finally comes the gift of motion, which leaves only a layer of earth between the cannibal and the sunlight and another generation

of innocents to become their victims. But crimes cannot always go unpunished; there must be justice even in the insect world. This slaughter of the innocent humble and flower bees must be

There is another bee-like creature, a true fly in reality, that plays her part in this gruesome drama. While the cannibal is abroad in search of a victim this creature which we will call the checker fly because of the peculiar pattern upon her abdomen-takes her life in her hands and slips into the den of the murderer.

Now to understand this action we must first examine a checker fly in the laboratory. Dissection brings. a wonderful fact to light. In the fly's abdomen we find no eggs as one might expect, but in their place ten living larvae. The microscope shows them to be whitish maggots clustered together in a ring and through their transparent bodies one may see the expanding and contracting of embryonic muscles.

The checker fly then gives birth to young alive. But why? She is a lowly rung in the ladder of insect life, while the cannibal bee, a member of the highest order of insects, is gifted with nothing more unusual than

ity itself.

We must know that the bee is nearly four times as large as the fly and greatly superior in strength. Now should the fly and the bee both lay eggs, the ultimate result is at once apparent. The eggs of both insects would hatch about the same time, but the young cannibals would soon grow much larger than the flylets. The strongest individuals survive and were it not for Nature's care in such matters, the young checker flies would perish. However, Nature has worked that out.

When the checker fly enters the burrow she heads straight for the cell in order to bear her young upon the meat stored up by the cannibal bee for her own offspring. Thus she saves herself. the trouble of providing a home and food for them; and the fly's young start at

once feeding and growing within the cell. In a few days the bee's eggs hatch, but the young checker flies have now gained sufficient strength and size to push aside and starve the new born bees.

Thus nature modifies the birth rate of the cannibals, sending these checkered enemies to destroy them, lest some day they exterminate the useful little flower and humble bees, whose mission it is to blend the pollen of a billion blossoms and make our world a land of plenty. It all fits into her plan for evolving a better world.

"Never buy real estate as an investment. In the first place, if you get a profit-not as a broker but as an investor -you will have to wait several years. You may nearly double your money in time, but you wait so long the return on your investment by the year is small. Also something is just as likely to happen to make it decrease as to make it increase in value."

Because what he says is true, real estate as a first-class investment must be

strongest competitor. Both men invested where they knew the management and the business.

On this subject, Alexander H. Revell, the Chicago merchant, said:

"Ninety per cent of the failures are due to the fact that men take money out of the business they know and put it into a business they do not know. The experiment fails and carries the established. business down with it."

RULE TWO: Put your money into some business where it will "turn over" quickly and often. In a word, do not speculate on the future; invest in the present.

Alexander H. Revell, the merchant of Chicago, was among the first to classify for me investments in a way to make this rule clear.

"Merchants buy things to sell them again. He is not a good merchant who buys something he cannot turn into cash quickly."

Since your investment and mine must go into business, the vital need is to know what general kinds of business turn over their money quickly.

F. S. Peabody, organizer of the Consumers Company of Chicago, and now chairman of its board of directors, says:

set down as the least desirable. It is so because it "turns over" the money so slowly.

Mr. Peabody's principal business is coal. His stock he "turns over" several times in its season. But its season comprises only about half of the year. Coal is better than real estate because it moves faster; but its long periods of idleness each year make it unattractive unless the money can be made to work twelve months in the year by being invested in ice in summer.

By combining ice and coal, the "turn over" of the capital is much faster. But a merchant in dry goods, etc., has a far better opportunity. He has four seasons and buys and sells goods suited to each. He has many things to sell and four opportunities yearly to "turn over" his capital.

one.

The baker has the best chance of any He "turns" his capital every day. He buys his flour in the morning. He sells his wares in the evening.

Put your money in something that moves fast. Then if you do not like the looks of things, you can take it out.

RULE THREE: Put your money in a business where it has more than one chance to win. Never put all your