PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 361 



round its body. The animal, which can only move in a spiral directioOj 

 keeps incessantly turning to take the jelly deposited before it ; and thus 

 slowly working downwards, arrives insensibly near the orifice of the cell, 

 just at the time that it is ready to assume the pupa ; when, as before de- 

 scribed, the workers shut up its cradle with an appropriate covering.^ 



When you have read this account, I fear, with the celebrated John 

 Hunter, you will not be very ready to believe it ; at least you will call 

 upon me to bring forth my " strong reasons " in support of it. What ! — 

 you will exclaim — can a larger and warmer house (for the royal cells are 

 affirmed to enjoy a higher temperature than those of the other bees ~), 

 a different and more pungent kind of food, and a vertical instead of a 

 horizontal posture, in the first place, give a bee a differently shaped tongue 

 and mandibles ; render the surface of its posterior tibiae flat instead of 

 concave; deprive them of the fringe of hairs that forms the basket for 

 carrying the masses of pollen ; of the aui'icle ami pecten which enable the 

 workers to use these tibiae as pincers " ; of the brush that lines the inside 

 of their plantae ? Can they lengthen its abdomen ; alter its colour and 

 clothing ; give a curve to its sting; deprive it of its wax-pockets, and of 

 the vessels for secreting that substance ; and render its ovaries more con- 

 spicuous, and capable of yielding female as well as male eggs ? Can, in 

 the next place, the seemingly trivial circumstances just enumerated alto- 

 gether alter the instinct of these creatures ? Can they give to one de- 

 scription of animals address and industry ; and to the other astonishing 

 fecundity ? Can we conceive them to change the very passions, tempers, 

 and manners ? That the very same foetus, if fed with more pungent food, 

 in a higher temperature and in a vertical position, shall become a female, 

 destined to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be incited to 

 vengeance, and to pass her time without labour — that this very same 

 fcEtus, if fetl with more simple food, in a lower temperature, in a more 

 confined and horizontal habitation, sha.Il come forth a worker zealous for 

 the good of the community, a defender of the public rights, enjoying an 

 immunity from the stimulus of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition 

 — laborious, industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful — incessantly engaged 

 in the nurture of the young ; in collecting honey and pollen ; in elaborat- 

 ing wax ; in constructing cells, and the like ! — paying the most respectful 

 and assiduous attention to objects which, had its ovaries been developed, 

 it would have hated, and pursued with the most vindictive fury till it had 

 destroyed them ! Further, that these factitious queens (I mean those that 

 the bees elect from amongst worker brood, and educate to supply the 

 place of a lost one in the manner just described) shall differ remarkably 

 from the natural queens (or those that have been wholly educated in a 

 royal cell), in being altogether mute.'* All this, you will think at first 

 sight so improbable, and next to impossible, that you will require the 

 strongest and most irrefragable evidence before you will believe it. 



In spite of all these powerful probabilities to the contrary, this astonish- 

 ing and seemingly incredible fact rests upon strong foundations, and is 

 established by experiments made at different times, by different persons of 

 the highest credit, in different parts of Europe. The first who brought 

 it before the public (as I lately observed) was M. Schirach, secretary 



1 Compare Bonnet, x. IjG. with Iluber, i. 131. 2 Schirach, G9. 



» iluber, t. 4;.j: 4— G. 4 Huber, i. 292. 



