The Swarm 



orders ; she obeys, as meekly as the 

 humblest of her subjects, the masked 

 power, sovereignly wise, that for the 

 present, and till we attempt to locate it, 

 we will term the "spirit of the hive." 

 But she is the unique organ of love ; she 

 is the mother of the city. She founded 

 it amid uncertainty and poverty. She 

 has peopled it with her own substance ; 

 and all who move within its walls — 

 workers, males, larvs, nymphs, and the 

 young princesses whose approaching birth 

 will hasten her own departure, one of 

 them being already designed as her suc- 

 cessor by the "spirit of the hive" — 

 all these have issued from her flanks. 



[lo] 



What is this "spirit of the hive" — 

 where does it reside? It is not like the 

 special instinct that teaches the bird to 

 construct its well planned nest, and then 



39 



