The Life of the Bee 



[99] 



But there is no warrant for the state- 

 ment that the habits of the bees are un- 

 changed. If we examine them with an 

 unbiassed eye, and without emerging 

 from the small area lit by our actual ex- 

 perience, we shall, on the contrary, dis- 

 cover marked variations. And who shall 

 tell how many escape us ? Were an ob- 

 server of a hundred and fifty times our 

 height and about seven hundred and fifty 

 thousand times our importance (these 

 being the relations of stature and weight 

 in which we stand to the humble honey- 

 fly), one who knew not our language, and 

 was endowed with senses totally different 

 from our own ; were such an one to have 

 been studying us, he would recognise 

 certain curious material transformations 

 in the course of the last two thirds of 

 the century, but would be totally un- 



370 



