FLOWER-HAUNTING INSECTS 251 



honey can be stored depends the whole domestic 

 economy of Bees and certain Ants. 



Honey-sucking is associated with the highest 

 faculties possessed by Insects, and marks, perhaps, the 

 highest phase in their evolution. It is a surprise that 

 Insects with so complex a domestic economy as 

 Wasps and Ants should be able to dispense with it. 

 Like almost all Insects they are fond of honey, but it 

 is seldom their chief food. The Bees have discovered 

 that honey can be converted by chemical change into 

 wax ; the gnawing Wasps make paper by chewing 

 vegetable fibres, and use that in their architecture. 

 The Ants have sacrificed their wings, for the sake, it 

 would appear, of carrying on their subterranean work 

 with greater ease. They have paid a heavy price for 

 this advantage, for loss of wings brought about their 

 exclusion from flowers. Ants do get honey, but it is 

 by precarious means and in small quantities. They 

 will drink the sweet excretion of Aphides, if no better 

 supply can be had. Some rifle special honey-glands on 

 the leaves of plants, which appear to have been specially 

 enlarged as a consequence of their visits. Ants are 

 even known to store up honey in subterranean 

 receptacles, the most singular of which are the 

 enormously dilated crops of certain individuals of 

 the community which sacrifice themselves for the 

 general good, and are converted into globular 

 honey-pots. 



Some of the honey-sucking Insects which are not 

 Hymenoptera assume so much of the form and colour 

 of Bees or Wasps as to resemble them superficially. 

 Species of Volucella, Eristalis, Syrphus, Bombylius, 



