LETTER XIX. 



SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. (T/lC Ilive-hce.) 



1 HE glory of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, you 

 will acknowledge^ is wonderfully manifested by the va- 

 ried proceedings of those social tribes of which I have 

 lately treated : but it shines forth with a brightness 

 still more intense in the instincts that actuate the hixe- 

 bee, and which I am next to lay before you. Indeed, 

 of all the insect associations, there are none that have 

 more excited the attention and admiration of mankind 

 in every age, or been more universally interesting, than 

 the colonies of these little useful creatures. Both Greek 

 and Roman writers are loud in their praise ; — nay, 

 some philosophers were so enamoured of them, that, as 

 I observed before^, they devoted a large portion of 

 their time to the study of their history. Whether the 

 knowledge they acquired was at all equivalent to the 

 years that were spent in the attainment of it, may be 

 doubted : for, were it so, it is probable that Aristotle 

 and Pliny would have given a clearer and more con- 

 sistent account of the inhabitants of the hive than they 

 have done. Indeed, had their discoveries borne any 

 proportion to the long tract of time asserted to have 

 been employed by some in the study of these insects, 

 ^VoL. I. 2d Ed. 485. 



