The Swarm 



vention must present itself to them. It 

 may be said, perhaps, that in the last 

 instance we have given, they place a very 

 false construction upon the queen's ina- 

 bility to follow them. But would our 

 powers of discernment be so very much 

 subtler, If an intelligence of an order 

 entirely different from our own, and 

 served by a body so colossal that its 

 movements were almost as imperceptible 

 as those of a natural phenomenon, were 

 to divert itself by laying traps of this 

 kind for us? Has it not taken us thou- 

 sands of years to invent a sufficiently 

 plausible explanation for the thunderbolt ? 

 There is a certain feebleness that over- 

 whelms every intellect the moment it 

 emerges from its own sphere, and is 

 brought face to face with events not of 

 its own initiation. And, besides, it is 

 quite possible that if this ordeal of the 

 trellis were to obtain more regularly and 

 III 



