378 AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



Humble-bees*, which in respect of their general policy 

 must, when compared with bees and wasps, be regarded 

 as rude and untutored villagers, exhibit nevertheless 

 marks of affection to their young quite as strong as their 

 more polished neighbours. The females, like those of 

 wasps, take a considerable share in their education. 

 When one of them has with great labour constructed a 

 commodious waxen cell, she nexts furnishes it with a 

 store of pollen moistened with honey ; and then having 

 deposited six or seven eggs, carefully closes the orifice 

 and minutest interstices with wax. But this is not the 

 whole of her task. By a strange instinct, which, how- 

 ever, may be necessary to keep the population within 

 due bounds, the workers, while she is occupied in laying 

 her eggs, endeavour to seize them from her, and, if they 

 succeed, greedily devour them. To prevent this violence, 

 her utmost activity is scarcely adequate ; and it is only 

 after she has again and again beat off the murderous in- 

 truders and pursued them to the furthest verge of the 

 nest, that she succeeds in her operation. When finished, 

 she is still under the necessity of closely guarding the 

 cell, which the gluttonous workers would otherwise tear 

 open, and devour the eggs. This duty she performs 

 for six or eight hours with the vigilance of an Argus, at 

 the end of which time they lose their taste for this food, 

 and will not touch it even when presented to them. Here 

 the labours of the mother cease, and are succeeded by 

 those of the workers. These know the precise hour when 

 the grubs have consumed their stock of food, and from 



a Dr. Johnson was ignorant of the etymology of this word. It is 

 clearly derived from the German Hummel or Hummel Biene, a name 

 probably given it from its sound. Our English name would be more 

 significant were it altered to Humming-bee or JBooming-bec. 



