244 Nature Study. [Sess. 
—hives were preserved. It was an ideal way to deteriorate 
the race. In principle it resembles the human plan of 
settling international differences by war. You remember 
the average height of the French people was lowered by 
an inch after the Napoleonic wars. Another problem about — 
the bee community is the number of drones maintained in 
the hive. In a large good hive there are some 20,000 bees 
and some 500 drones, whereas a dozen or two would seem — 
to be enough: this means that the working members of the 
community have to pay 6d. per £ of income-tax—in many 
cases much more—to keep up the idle classes——the leisured 
classes. There must be some reason for this. May I 
suggest a probable explanation? The drones, whether from 
their leisure or celibacy, are the gifted members of the hive. 
The workers are sacrificed to work, and die early. The 
queen is wholly given to reproduction, and has the brain 
of an imbecile; while the drones are the best endowed with ~ 
organs of sense and with brains,—I mean, their nervous 
system is the most developed. The drones may therefore 
be a means of keeping up the intelligence of the race, and 
for this the workers submit to the income-tax I have men- 
tioned. I know that I am treading on dangerous ground, 
and that this is not the time to discuss such a problem, nor 
to suggest a solution not according to current Weismannian 
views. Beekeeping, however, means having a garden, and 
that is a luxury beyond the reach of many urban field 
naturalists. A great many interesting cultivations, however, 
may be made in an inverted bell-jar. In summer I had a 
boat lying on the shore in which there happened to be a 
good deal of rain water. On going to empty it, I found 
scores of the aquatic larve of some gnat or mosquito floating 
on the surface, and others swimming rapidly through the 
water by sudden contortions,—you know what I mean. le 
gathered a lot into a tube and tumbled them into an © 
aquarium: there was nothing in that. JI have done the 
same thing before—we have many of us done it again and 
again, just as we plant out our geraniums or sow our annuals — 
every year: we want to enjoy seeing them as often as we 
can. In that small glass vessel the whole drama of insect 
life was performed. The curtain rises and shows us on 
