BEES SWARMING. 255 



three or four hundred fall by a general massacre, towards the 

 end of July or early in August. The Amazonian city is thus 

 rid of all useless mouths, before winter with her icy batteries 

 lays siege to its straw-built outworks and waxen walls. 



Have those by whom Bee economy has been held up for 

 human imitation, ever thought about the awful consequences 

 which would be involved in even a partial copy of the above 

 severely wholesome policy ? 



Having now glanced separately at each of the anomalous 

 classes of a Bee community, its matron queen who possesses 

 no political authority, and performs no matronly duties ; its com- 

 monalty of single females endowed with every manly and, at 

 the same time, matronly virtue ; and its nobility of males, the 

 most insignificant and most effeminate of all : we shall take 

 another look at them as they stand together socially related. 



Let us suppose ourselves, one moonlight evening in May, 

 taking a garden stroll beside a range of Bee-hives. Instead of 

 the nightly stillness which is wont in Bee cities to succeed the 

 daily hum, there arises from one of these a loud uneasy 

 murmur, which instead of lessening, continues to increase with 

 the lateness of the hour. Our hive is not of glass, but if it 

 were, the restlessness thus audible without, would become 

 apparent within, by the evidences of crowding, confusion, 

 and jostling, by all the tokens, in short, usually attendant 

 on some grand event in expectation. From so violent a ferment 

 of vitality, something must of necessity arise; but through the 



Q2 



