INSECTS. 



131 



great end of their existence is effected, and the continuance 

 of the community is secured, they are dragged forth, and 

 mercilessly stung to death by the workers. To this slaughter, 

 which takes place in autumn, it is probable the poet may 

 have referred, in the concluding lines. 



The deference with which the queen is attended in her 

 progress through the hive, her fierce encounters with rivals, 

 the sagacity displayed by her attendants in promoting or in 

 preventing these conflicts, according to the different condition 

 of her subjects, and the conduct of the virgin queen, as she 

 sets forth with her emigrants to found cities no less populous 

 than the one they have forsaken, are matters on which our 

 space does not allow us to dwell. But we must mention in 

 what manner the anarchy which succeeds the death of the 

 queen is terminated, and it is one of the examples with which 

 the study of nature abounds, that the truth is stranger than 

 the fiction. The workers select one or more cells, containing 

 the grubs or young workers in their larva state. They give 

 them more commodious, or, as they are termed, "royal cells;" 

 they feed them with "royal jelly;" and, instead of small-sized 

 sterile workers, they come forth virgin queens, with forms, 

 instincts, and powers of production, 

 altogether different I* 



The tongue of the Bee a piece of 

 admirable mechanism is furnished with 

 numerous muscles, and protected by 

 sheaths when not in use, yet fitted 

 for being instantaneously unfolded, and 

 darted into the blossom of a flower. 

 Its structure in one of the humble Bees 

 is shown in the accompanying figure 

 (Fig. 114). The nectar thus swept 

 up is at once consigned to the honey- 

 bag. This being done, the tongue is 

 sheathed with the same rapidity, re- 

 tracted in part into the mouth, and the 

 remainder doubled up under the chin 

 and neck, until again required. When F . 114 _n EADOV 

 needful, the mandibles are called into AXVHOFHO**. 



Fig. 114. , Antennae. b, Mandibles c, Labrum. d, Maxillary palpi, - 



Maxillae./, Lateral lobes of tongue. g, Labial Palpi. h, Tongue. 



* Kirby and Spence, vol. ii. page 129. 



