PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 197 



unhappy snail, that had travelled up the sides of a glazed 

 hive, and which they could not come at with their stings, 

 they fixed, a monument of their vengeance and dexte- 

 rity, by laying this substance all around the mouth of its 

 shell*. When they expel their excrements, they go 

 apart that they may not defile their companions : and in 

 winter, when prevented by extreme cold, or the injudi- 

 cious practice of wholly closing the door of the hive, from 

 going out for this purpose, their bodies sometimes be- 

 come so swelled from the accumulation of feces in the 

 intestines, that when at last able to get out they can no 

 longer fly, so that falling to the ground in the attempt, 

 they perish with cold, the sacrifice of personal neatness*^. 

 When a bee is disclosed from the pupa and has left its 

 cell, a worker comes, and taking out its envelope carries 

 it from the hive ; another I'emoves the exuviae of the lar- 

 va, and a third any filth or ordure that may remain, or 

 any pieces of wax that may have fallen in when the na- 

 scent imago broke from its confinement. But they never 

 attempt to remove the internal lining of silk that covers 

 the walls, spun by the larva previous to its metamorpho- 

 sis, because, instead of being a nuisance, it renders the 

 cell more solid ^ 



Having now described to you the usual employments 

 of my little favourites both within doors and without, I 

 shall next enlarge a little upon their language, memory, 

 tempers, manners, and some other parts of their histor}-. 



" Brutes " (it is the remark of Mr. Knight) " have 

 language to express sentiments of love, of fear, of an- 

 ger; but they seem unable to transmit any impression 



=» Reaum.v. 442. *■ Bonner On Bees, 103. 



' Reaum. ubi iupr, 580-600. 



