4-98 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



enable them to fly the moment they are at liberty, gra- 

 dually paring away the waxen wall that confines them 

 to their cell to an extreme thinness, and only suffering 

 it to be broken down at|he precise moment required ; 

 the attention with which, in these circumstances, they 

 feed the imprisoned queen by frequently putting honey 

 upon her proboscis, protruded from a small orifice in 

 the lid of her cell ; - the watchfulness with which, when 

 at the period of swarming more queens than one are re- 

 quired, they place a guard over the cells of those undis- 

 closed, to preserve them from the jealous fury of their 

 excluded rivals ; the exquisite calculation with which 

 they invariably release the oldest queens the first from 

 their confinement ; the singular love of monarchical 

 dominion, by which, when two queens in other circum- 

 stances are produced, they are led to impel them to com- 

 bat until one is destroyed ; the ardent devotion which 

 binds them to the fate and fortunes of the survivor ; 

 the distraction which they manifest at her loss, and their 

 resolute determination not to accept of any stranger un- 

 til an interval has elapsed sufficiently long to allow of no 

 chance of the return of their rightful sovereign ; and 

 (to omit a further enumeration) the obedience which in 

 the utmost noise and confusion they show to her well- 

 known hum. 



I have now instanced at least thirty distinct instincts 

 with which every individual of the nurses amongst the 

 working-bees is endowed : and if to the account be add- 

 ed their care to carry from the hive the dead bodies of 

 any of the community; their pertinacity in their battles, 

 in directing their sting at those parts only of the bodies 

 of their adversaries which are penetrable by it ; their 



