36 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. I. 



It would perhaps be incorrect to ascribe this con- 

 duct to motives similar to those which influence hu- 

 man agents. And yet it is difficult, if not impossi- 

 ble, to resist the impression, that although not exactly 

 similar, they are at least analogous. These humble 

 creatures cherish their queen, feed her, and provide 

 for her wants. They live only in her life, and die 

 when she is taken away. Her absence deprives 

 them of no organ, paralyzes no limb, yet in every 

 case they neglect all their duties for twenty-four 

 hours. They receive no stranger queen before the ex- 

 piration of that time ; and if deprived of the cherished 

 object altogether, they refuse food, and quickly pe- 

 rish. What, it may be asked, is the physical cause 

 of such devotion ? What are the bonds that chain 

 the little creature to its cell, and force it to prefer 

 death, to the flowers and the sunshine that invite it 

 to come forth and live ] This is not a solitary in- 

 stance in which the Almighty has made virtues ap- 

 parently almost unattainable by us, natural to ani- 

 mals ! For while man has marked, with that praise 

 which great and rare good actions merit, those few 

 instances in which one human being has given up 

 his own life for another — the dog, who daily sacri- 

 fices himself for his master, has scarcely found an 

 historian to record his common virtue. 



