PEUrECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 35 



event as their harvest, and, as you have been told be- 

 fore, make them their food; so that scarcely a single 

 pair in many millions get into a place of safety, fulfil 

 the first law of nature, and lay the foundation of a 

 new community. At this time they are seen running 

 upon the ground, the male after the female, and some- 

 times two chasing one, and contending with great 

 eagerness, regardless of the innumerable dangers that 

 surround them, who shall win the prize. 



The workers, who are continually prowling about in 

 their covered ways, occasionally meet with one of these 

 pairs, and, being impelled by their instinct, pay them 

 homage, and they are elected as it were to be king and 

 queen, or rather father and mother, of a new colony^: 

 all that are not so fortunate, inevitably perish ; and, 

 considering the infinite host of their enemies, probably 

 in the course of the following day. The workers, as 

 soon as this election takes place, begin to inclose their 

 new rulers in a small chamber of clay, before descri- 

 bed^, suited to their size, the entrances to which are 

 only large enough to admit themselves and the neuters, 

 but much too small for the royal pair to pass through; 

 — so that their state of royalty is a state of confinement, 

 and so continues during the remainder of their exist- 

 ence. The impregnation of the female is supposed to 

 take place after this confinement, and she soon begins 

 to furnish the infant colony with new inhabitants. The 



^ In this these animals vary from the usual instinct of the social Hy= 

 menoptera, the ants, the wasps, and the humble-bees — with whom the 

 females lay the first foundations of the colonies, unassisted by any neuters; 

 —but in the swarms of the hive-bee an election may, perhaps, in some 

 instances, be said to t^ke place. '' Vol. I, ?d Ed, 512. 



D 2 



