21^ PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



lius Caesar, that therefore its inhabitants must be im- 

 mortal. 



Bees are subject to many accidents, particularly, as 

 I have said above, they often fall or are precipitated 

 by the wind into water ; and though like the cat a bee 

 has not nine lives, nor 



" Nine times emerging from the crystal flood. 

 She mews to every watery god," 



yet she will bear submersion nine hours ; and, if exposed 

 to sufficient heat, be reanimated. In this case their pro- 

 boscis is generally unfolded, and stretched to its full 

 length. At the extremity of this, motion is first per- 

 ceived, and then at the ends of the legs. After these 

 symptoms appear they soon recover, fold up the tongue, 

 and plume themselves for flight''. Experimentalists 

 may therefore, without danger, submerge a hive of 

 bees, when they want to examine them particularly, 

 for they will all revive upon being set to the fire. 

 Reaumur says that in winter, during frosts, the bees 

 remain in a torpid state. He must mean severe frosts ; 

 for Huber relates an instance, when upon a sudden 

 emergency, the bees of one of his hives set themselves 

 to work in the middle of January ; and he observes 

 that they are so little torpid in winter, that even when 

 the thermometer abroad is below the freezing point, it 

 stands high in populous hives. Swammerdam, and 

 after him the two authors last quoted, found that some- 

 times, even in the middle of winter, hives have young 

 brood in them, which the bees feed and attend to. In 

 an instance of this kind, which fell under the eye of 



■ Rearnn. v. 540— 



