IN REPUBLICS. 359 
assiduous attention: she enlarges their 
cell, and watches over their safety, until 
they become themselves real workers, 
capable of assisting her in taking care of - 
those to whom she is about to give birth. 
A society is established between the 
mother and her young: each day the 
circle of her relations is extended, and 
the union is rendered more perfect. 
Among bees, properly so called, an 
innumerable crowd of workers are pro- 
duced from a single mother. If, how- 
ever, maternal feelings and the delights 
of love are denied them, they do not the 
less evince their affection and solicitude 
for the young of their common mother ; 
they nourish them, and defend them 
with a zeal and disinterestedness truly 
praiseworthy. 
The ants carry still further this de- 
votedness for their charge: they take 
care of and nurture them, even in the 
state of eggs, and give them mouth-pro- 
vision in that of larvae: when the latter 
are become pupe, they procure for them 
