ORDER VI. VEIX-WINGED INSECTS. 273 



pain and tumefaction caused by the venom of bees ; but cold 

 water or spirits of hartshorn (volatile alkali) is perhaps 

 the best application after the sting has been extracted. 

 This latter remedy we have often proved, and always carry 

 a phial of it when making entomological excursions ; we 

 have found it universally successful in relieving the effects 

 of the sting of bees, wasps, mosquitoes, and snakes, partic- 

 ularly in tropical countries. Laudanum, or onion-juice 

 mixed with salt, is also an excellent remedial application. 



The stings of bees are their weapons of offense as well as 

 of defense ; with them they fight their battles, murder their 

 rivals, and massacre the drones. During the autumn and 

 winter the drones are a useless burden to the community in 

 the hives, as they do not work, and could only remain idle 

 consumers of the honey which the working bees have man- 

 ufactured and stored up for their own use ; hence they are 

 murdered by wholesale every autumn — the workers killing 

 them with their stings. In this respect they are not unlike 

 the ancient Spartans, whose laws allowed them to kill their 

 children if they were deformed ; or the Chinese, who are 

 permitted to destroy each new-born infant that they deem 

 themselves unable to support ; or the savages, Avho believe 

 it their religious duty to kill all the superannuated or infirm 

 among them, and thus put them out of misery. 



Besides this annual massacre of the drones, the working- 

 bees fight battles among themselves in the hives, where one 

 throws herself with great fury upon another ; then, coming 

 out of the hive, they fall to the ground, and wrestle together 

 head to head, continually trying to sting one another, until 

 at last one or the other succeeds in thrusting its sting be- 

 tween two ringlets, or into the head of the other, and thus 

 kills her. Very often, however, the sting of the victor re- 

 mains in the wound of the slain, and, if so, she also soon 

 perishes. Such a battle sometimes continues only a few 

 minutes, while at others it lasts for hours before the fatal 

 M2 



