DISPOSAL OF HONEY. 201 



a member of a well ordered and numerous community ; she 

 knows her duties and performs them. On lately seeing her 

 unfold her tongue, arid draw in,, with seeming greediness, the 

 nectar of a flower, one might have fancied that she was 

 quaffing her luscious draught in the same luxurious sensual 

 spirit of self regalement, as a human votary of Bacchus, and 

 with no more creditable end in view ; but if such were our 

 opinion we should soon perceive, on watching her home pro- 

 ceedings, how grievously we wronged her. 



Fulfilling, in the first place, her duty of loyalty, she offers, as 

 a tribute to her queen, a portion of her honey, pure as at the 

 moment of swallowing, an operation merely of transfer from 

 the nectary of the flowers to her own honey-bag, or first 

 stomach. 



The remainder, all at least except that trifling portion re- 

 quired for her own support, she then deposits within one of the 

 store cells of which the contents are appropriated to the supply 

 of the community ; or instead of this, on finding a group of 

 labourers employed in building, to some of them, hungry and 

 thirsty with their toil, she kindly gives of her abundance, or 

 perhaps of her scarcity, a draught of sweet refreshment. 



Her honey thus disposed of what does she do with her 

 pollen, the golden lading of her triangular thigh baskets? 

 Perhaps she swallows it herself, or perhaps is spared that 

 trouble by some of her companions. But in thus gorging 

 neither she nor they are making it an object of greedy ap- 



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