126 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



of them, which in their infancy are supposed to have 

 partaken of some portion of the royal jelly, lay male 

 eggs. There is found in some hives, according to Huber, 

 a kind of bees, which from having less down upon the 

 head and thorax appear blacker than the others, by 

 whom they ai-e always expelled from the hive, and often 

 killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissection, were discovered 

 in these bees, though not furnished with eggs. This dis- 

 covery induced M'*^ Jurine, the lady who dissected 

 them, to examine the common workers in the same way ; 

 and she found in all that she examined, what had es- 

 caped Swammerdam, perfect though sterile ovaries *. It 

 is worth inquiry, though M. Huber gives no hint of 

 this kind, whether these were not in fact superannuated 

 bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of 

 the hive. Thorley remarks, which confirms this idea, 

 that if you closely observe a. hive of bees in July, you 

 may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with 

 wings rent and torn ; but that in September not one of 

 them is to be seen ^. Huber does not say whether the 

 wings of the bees in question were lacerated ; but in 

 superannuated insects the hair is often rubbed off the 

 body, which gives them a darker hue than that of more 

 recent individuals of the same species. Should this con- 

 jecture turn out true, their banishment and destruction 

 of the seniors of the hive would certainly not show our 

 little creatures in a very amiable point of view. Yet it 

 seems the law of their nature to rid their community of all 

 supernumerary and useless members, as is evident from 

 their destruction of the drones after their work is done. 

 It is not often that insects have been weighed ; but 

 " Huber, ii. 425—. " Thorley, On Bees, 179. 



