INSECT VARIETY. 57 



to the hole Avhere they oviposite^ leaving' their carcases as food 

 for the future larvse. Others, again, live in a community of 

 three sexes, and are "child-nurses/^ as bees, ants, and wasps. 

 The sterile Formicidae watch over the sun-hatching of their 

 uymphs, and matron bees tend the young singly (Melinus, 

 Epipone) ; or sterile females do so in company (Apis, Bombus) ; 

 but much of their economy is probably pleasant fiction. 



Secretions likewise play their part in domesticity. The 

 flocculent coccus blight and summer cicad?e perj^etually suckling 

 frothy plant-juices, often come to hand powdered over with a 

 clammy and resinous bloom exuding from the acicular pores of 

 their dermis ; and we know the veiy similar tough yellow, 

 white, or black wax of bees, passively extruded as Huber 

 establishes, in thin light scales from the vinder-joints in the 

 hind body of many a sterile worker and solitary matron, has 

 its employment in the fabrication of those native and multi- 

 farious cellular marvels, seemingly constructed to that rule 

 proper to the dimensions of the bee body; as caterpillars and 

 grubs, on transition to their assigned sleep of torjDor, eject 

 from their convoluted reservoirs and weave around them 

 houses of silk, resins, g-lues, or dusty matter. So that it would 

 seem but fair to assume that honey, wax, and propolis have 

 severally become secretions subservient to maternal sentiment, 

 while they exhibit a wider and structural origin. Nor can this 

 offcome of gluttony be ignored by mankind himself. Other 

 resinous secretions akin to these are recognised as producing 

 pleasant scarlet, rose, and crimson hues that command a value 

 in the market, such as constitute the famed Kermes, scarlet 

 grain of Poland, cochineal, and lac-lake, all of which dyes are 

 the produce of the mealy apterous coccus blight, which elaborates 

 them from a great diversity of plants, and which seems to hold 

 affinity in this respect with other staining matter, such as the 

 common writing-ink, extracted from the galls and tumours in- 

 duced by insect agency on the plants themselves, or with the 

 tints and ciphers on the bodies and wings of species. 



A gradation is further noticeable in the nesting of bees. 

 We observe some that line their holes with certain leaves, 

 wood-raspings, or a kind of glue; and then, after laying each 

 Ggg, close it in successively, as in a cocoon, having first 



