Packard.] MENTAL POWEKS OF INSECTS. 383 



"Numerous as arc the instincts I liave already enumerated, 

 the list must yet include those connected with that m3'steri- 

 ous principle which binds the working bees of a hive to their 

 queen — the singular imprisonment in which they retain the 

 3-oung queens that are to lead off a swarm, until their wings 

 be sufficiently expanded to enable tliem to fl}^ the moment 

 they are at liberty', gradually'' paring away the waxen wall 

 that confines them to their cell to an extreme thinness, and 

 only suffering it to be broken down at the precise moment 

 required; the attention with which, in these circumstances, 

 they feed the imprisoned queen by frequently putting honey 

 upon her proboscis, protruded from a small orifice in the lid 

 of her cell ; the watchfulness with which, when at the period 

 of swarming more queens than one are required, they place 

 a guard over the cells of those undisclosed, to preserve them 

 from the jealous fury of their excluded rivals ; the exquisite 

 calculation with which they invariably release the oldest 

 queens the first from their confinement ; the singular love of 

 monarchical dominion, by which, when two queens in other 

 circumstances are produced, they are led to impel them to 

 combat until one is destroyed ; the ardent devotion which 

 binds tliem to the fate and fortunes of the survivor ; the dis- 

 traction which they manifest at her loss, and their resolute 

 determination not to accept of any stranger until an interval 

 has elapsed sufficiently long to allow of no chance of the 

 return of the rightful sovereign ; and (to omit a further 

 enumeration) the obedience which in the utmost noise and 

 confusion they show to her well-known hum. 



"I have now instanced at least thirty distinct instincts 

 with which every individual of the nurses amongst the work- 

 ing-bees is endowed ; and if to the account be added their 

 care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of any of the com- 

 munity ; their pertinacity in their battles, in directing their 

 stings at those parts only of the bodies of their adversaries 

 which are penetrable by it ; their annual autumnal murder 



31 



