INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 501 



superfluous. Every one knows that at the same moment 

 of time the citizens of a hive are employed in the most 

 varied and opposite operations. Some are collecting 

 pollen ; others are in search of honey ; some busied at 

 home in the first construction of the cells; others in 

 giving them their last polish ; others in ventilating the 

 liive ; others again in feeding the young brood and the 

 like. 



Now, how are we to account for this regularity of 

 procedure — this undeviating accuracy with which the 

 precise instinct wanted is excited — this total absence of 

 all confusion in the employment by each inhabitant of 

 the hive, of that particular instinct out of so many which 

 the good of the community requires ? No thinking man 

 ever witnesses the complexness and yet regularity and 

 efficiency of a great establishment, such as the Bank of 

 England, or the Post-office, without marvelling that even 

 human reason cap put together with so little friction 

 and such slight deviations from correctness, machines 

 whose wheels are composed not of wood and iron, but 

 of fickle mortals of a thousand different inclinations, 

 powers, and capacities. But if such establishments be 

 surprising even with reason for their prime mover, 

 how much more so is a hive of bees whose proceedings 

 are guided by their instincts alone ! We can conceive 

 that the sensations of hunger experienced on awaking in 

 the morning should excite into action their instinct of 

 gathering honey. But all are hungry: yet all do not rush 

 out in search of flowers. What sensation is it that detains 

 a portion of the hive at home, unmindfid of the gnawings 

 of an empty stomach, busied in domestic arrangements, 

 until the return of their roving companions ? Of those 



