14'2 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



ture having decreed lliat these duels should not be fatal 

 to both combatants, as soon as they were thus circum- 

 stanced a panic fear seemed to strike them, and they 

 disengaged themselves, and each fled away. After a 

 few minutes were expired, the attack was renewed in a 

 similar manner with the same issue ; till at last one sud- 

 denly seizing the other by her wing, mounted upon her 

 and inflicted a mortal wound *. 



The combats I have here described to you took place 

 between virgin queens ; but M. Fluber found that those 

 which had been impregnated were actuated by the same 

 animosity, and attacked royal cells with a fury equally 

 destructive. When another fertile queen had been in- 

 troduced into this hive, a singular scene ensued, which 

 proves how well aware the workers are that they cannot 

 prosper with two sovereigns. Soon after she was intro- 

 duced, a circle of bees was formed round the stranger, 

 not to compliment her on her arrival, or pay her the 

 usual homage, but to confine her, and prevent her escape; 

 for they insensibly agglomerated themselves in such 

 numbers round her, and hemmed her in so closely, that 

 in a;bout a minute she was completely a prisoner. While 

 this was transacting, what was equally remarkable, other 

 workers assembled in clusters round the legitimate queen, 

 and impeded all her motions ; so that soon she was not 

 more at liberty than the intruder. It seemed as if the 

 bees foresaw the combat that was to ensue between the 

 two rivals, and were impatient for the event ; for they 

 only confined them when they appeared to avoid each 

 other. To witness the homage, respect and love that 



^ Huber, i. 1/4. 



