QUEEN OF THE GOLD COMB 



death of both. He watched the contest between 

 these two queens. It was long, and his impression 

 was that they were trying to find out, by some 

 means obscure to human understanding, which was 

 the right one to give the fatal sting. 



The duel consisted of one protracted preliminary 

 or trial stage, and then one swift and sure death- 

 stroke. There seemed to be nothing like a fierce 

 onslaught by both sides ; rather a spirit of cautious 

 investigation or inquiry. Suppose this is the spirit 

 in which the queens engage ; what a perfection of 

 science the bees have reached, and how crude and 

 inefficient, compared with it, much of the machinery 

 of human intellect seems ! 



Professional Flycatchers 



Of English butterflies, the three common whites 

 large, small, and green veined are the most sub- 

 ject on the wing to the attacks of insect-eating birds. 

 House sparrows, chaffinches, stonechats, flycatchers, 

 and swallows are their frequent pursuers, though the 

 first two usually fail to strike down the butterfly 

 after several excited attempts. The swallow and the 

 spotted flycatcher are, as Mr. Hewett says in his 

 gay book, "The Open Air Boy," the true pro- 

 fessionals. " Most birds . . . are extraordinarily 

 clumsy in capturing an insect (a moth or butterfly). 

 I had brought half a dozen white admirals home in 

 pill-boxes one day, and, finding that I did not want 



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