TRANSMUTABLE. 169 



explain much of what appears difficult in these 

 slave ants. But we want to know a great deal 

 more about the economy of the Hymenoptera. 

 One day we are told by Siebold, that the queen 

 bee can produce eggs which will become drones 

 without sexual intercourse. The next we are 

 told by Mr. Stone, in the "Zoologist," that the so- 

 called neuter bees do lay fertile eggs. We cannot 

 draw conclusions of high scientific import from a 

 class, which, though the most interesting, is not 

 it appears, even in the present day, thoroughly 

 understood. Yon Siebold's observations have never 

 been confirmed, and it is not difficult to imagine 

 there may be here a source of fallacy. 



Nothing I think can better illustrate the ex- 

 treme degree of infatuation with which Mr. Darwin 

 has become imbued with his "natural selection' 7 

 theory, than when he states it was necessary for 

 him to comprehend why the thrush in South 

 America lined its nest with mud, as ours does, 

 or why the male wrens of North America should 

 build "cock nests" to roost in, like the u kitty 

 wren" of our own school-days in England! 



But why, I may ask, is the song thrush the 

 only one of the family that lines its nest with 

 mud? The missel thrush, the fieldfare, the black- 

 bird, ring ouzel, and the redwing, all what Mr. 

 Darwin would call varieties of the same species, 

 do use mud in the construction of their nest, but 

 not in its lining; while the golden oriole and 

 dipper do not use it at all. Surely the building 

 of a nest by a bird is purely instinctive. It 



