INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 497 



Several distinct instincts, again, are called into action 

 in the important business of feeding the young brood. 

 One teaches them to swallow pollen, not to satisfy the 

 calls of hunger, but that it may undergo in their sto- 

 mach an elaboration fitting it for the food of the grubs; 

 and another to regurgitate it when duly concocted, and 

 to administer it to their charge, proportioning the sup- 

 ply to the age and condition of the recipients. A third 

 informs them when the young grubs have attained their 

 full growth, and directs them to cover their cells with a 

 waxen lid, convex in the male cells, but nearly flat in 

 those of workers ; and by a fourth, as soon as the young 

 bees have burst into day, they are impelled to clean out 

 the deserted tenements and to make them ready for new 

 occupants. 



Numerous as are the instincts I have already enume- 

 rated, the list must yet include those connected with that 

 mysterious principle which binds the workin 4 bees of 

 a hive to their queen : — the singular imprisonment in 

 which they retain the young queens that are to lead off 

 a swarm, until their wings be sufficiently expanded to 



a merchant, which he had formerly occupied, to the no small surprise 

 of this gentleman, who imagined that from some accident the animal 

 had never been shipped on board the Ister. On the return of this 

 vessel to repair, the mystery was explained ; and it turned out that 

 Valiante (so the ass was called) had not only swam safely to shore, 

 but, without guide, compass, or travelling map, had found his way 

 from Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance of more than two hundred 

 miles, which he had never traversed before, through a mountainous 

 and intricate country, intersected by streams, and in so short a pe- 

 riod that he could not have made one false turn. His not having 

 been stopped on the road was attributed to the circumstance of his 

 having been formerly used to whip criminals upon, which was indi- 

 cated to the peasants, who have a superstitious horror of such asses, 

 by the holes in his ears, to which the persons flogged wore tied, 



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