LETTER XIX. 



SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. {The Hivc-bee''.) 



1 HE glory of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, you 

 will acknowledge, is wonderfully manifested by the va- 

 ried proceedings of those social tribes of which I have 

 lately treated : but it shines forth with a brightness still 

 more intense in the instincts that actuate the common 

 hive-bee {Ajns 7nellijica), and which I am next to lay be- 

 fore you. Indeed, of all the insect associations, there are 

 none that have more excited the attention and admiration 

 of mankind in every age. or been more universally in- 

 teresting, than the colonies of these little useful crea- 

 tures. Both Greek and Roman writers are loud in 

 their praise ; nay, some philosophers were so enamoured 

 of them, that, as I observed before ^ they devoted a 

 large portion of their time to the study of their histoiy. 

 Whether the knowledge they acquired was at all equi- 

 valent to the years that were spent in the attainment of 

 it, may be doubted : for, were it so, it is probable that 

 Aristotle and Pliny would have given a clearer and more 



'^ Apis **. c. 1. K. Dr. Bevan has lately published a very interest- 

 ing work on the Honey Bee, which the reader will do well to consult. 

 " Vol. I. 481. 



