MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 429 



with their antennae extended, and alternately directed to the right and left. 

 In the meantime the moths flutter round the entrance ; and it is curious 

 to see with what art they know iiow to profit of the disadvantage that the 

 bees, which cannot discern objects but in a strong light, labour under at 

 that time. But should they touch a moth with these organs of nice sensa- 

 tion, it falls an immediate victim to their just anger. The moth, however, 

 seeks to glide between the sentinels, avoiding with the utmost caution, as 

 if she were sensible that her safety depended upon it, all contact witli 

 their antennae. These bees upon guard in the night are frequently heard to 

 utter a very short low hum ; but no sooner does any strange insect or 

 enemy touch their antennse than the guard is put into a commotion, and 

 the hum becomes louder, resembling that of bees when they fly, and the 

 enemy is assailed by workers from the interior of the hive.^ 



To defend themselves from the death's-head hawk-moth, they have re- 

 course to a different proceeding. In seasons in which they are annoyed 

 by this animal, they often barricade the entrance of their hive by a thick 

 wall made of wax and propohs. This wall is built immediately behind and 

 sometimes in the gateway, which it entirely stops up ; but it is itself pierced 

 with an opening or two sufficient for the passage of one or two workers. 

 These fortifications are occasionally varied : sometimes there is only one 

 wall, as just described, the apertures of which are in arcades, and placed in 

 the upper part of the masonry. At others many little bastions, one behind 

 the other, are erected. Gateways masked by the anterior walls, and not 

 corresponding with those in them, are made in the second line of building. 

 These casemated gates are not constructed by the bees without the most 

 urgent necessity. When their danger is present and pressing, and they 

 are as it were comjjelled to seek some preservative, they have recourse to 

 this mode of defence '', which places the instinct of these animals in a won- 

 derful light, and shows how well they know how to adapt their proceed- 

 ings to circumstances. Can this be merely sensitive ? When attacked by 

 strange bees, they have recourse to a similar manoeuvre ; only in this case 

 they make but narrow apertures, sufficient for a single bee to pass through. 

 — Pliny affirms that a sick bear will provoke a hive of bees to attack iiim 

 in order to let him blood.^ What will you say, if humble-bees have re- 

 course to a similar manoeuvre ? It is related to me by Dr. Leach from the 

 communications of Mr. Daniel Bydder — an indefatigable and well-informed 

 collector of insects, and observer of their proceedings — that Bombus* ter- 

 restris, when labouring under Acarinsis from the numbers of a small mite (G«- 

 masuH Gymnopterorimi) that infest it, will take its station in an ant-hill ; 

 where beginning to scratch and kick, and make a disturbance, the ants im- 

 mediately come out to attack it, and falling foul of the mites, they destroy 

 or carry them all off; when the bee, thus delivered from its enemies, takes 

 its flight. 



In this long detail, the first idea that will, I should hope, strike the mind 

 of every thinking being, is the truth of the Psalmist's observation — that 

 the tender mercies of God are over all his works. Not the least and most 

 insignificant of his creatures is, we see, deprived of his paternal care and 

 attention ; none are exiled from his all-directing providence. Why then 

 should man, the head of the visible creation, for whom all the inferior 



1 Hiiber, Nouv. Ohs. ii. 412. 2 ibid. ii. 294. 



5 Hist. Nat. 1. viii. c. 36. < Apis * *. e. 2. K. 



