378 AFfECTION OP INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



as their more polished neighbours. The females, like 

 those of wasps, lake a considerable share in their edu- 

 cation. When one of them has with great labour con- 

 structed a commodious waxen cell, she next furnishes 

 it with a store of pollen moistened with honey ; and 

 then having deposited six or seven eggs, carefully closes 

 the orifice and minutest interstices with wax. But this 

 is not the whole of her task. By a strange instinct, 

 which, however, may be necessary to keep the popula- 

 tion within due bounds, the workers, while she is oc- 

 cupied in laying her eggs, endeavour to seize them from 

 her, and, if they succeed, greedily devour them. To 

 prevent this violence, her utmost activity is scarcely 

 adequate ; and it is only after she has again and again 

 beat oflf the murderous intruders and pursued them to 

 the furthest verge of the nest, that she succeeds in her 

 operation. When finished, she is still under the ne- 

 cessity of closely guarding the cell, which the glutton- 

 ous workers would otherwise tear open, and devour the 

 eggs. This duty she performs for six or eight hours 

 with the vigilance of an Argus, at the end of which time 

 they lose their taste for this food, and will not touch 

 it even when presented to them. Here the labours of 

 the mother cease, and are succeeded by those of the 

 workers. These know the precise hour when the grubs 

 have consumed their stock of food, and from that time 

 to their maturity regularly feed them with either honey 

 or pollen, introduced in their proboscis through a small 

 hole in the cover of the cell opened for the occasion and 

 then carefully closed. 



They are equally assiduous in another operation. 

 As the grubs increase in size the cell which contained 



