252 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



of wax. The wax was no doubt at first very impure, 

 and used very sparingly, as is still the case with the less 

 expert insects. The most advanced bee-communities use 

 it in large quantities, though always with the most 

 scrupulous economy. The process of wax-making by 

 hive-bees leaves no doubt that they make it out of honey 

 how I cannot tell. Some palms and other plants are also 

 able to make wax out of sugar. 



Upon the possibility of making wax and storing honey 

 is founded the whole economy of the more complex bee- 

 societies. Ants, though they are fond of honey, have 

 not got so far as to make wax. They early took a line of 

 their own, gave up the regular exercise of flight, most 

 of them losing their wings altogether, and thus, while gain- 

 ing greater facility in underground work, relinquished all 

 the chief advantages of a close co-operation with flowering 

 plants. Flies are often honey-seekers, and a few flies 

 have powerfully affected the structure of certain flowers, 

 but in general they are inexpert at this work, and seldom 

 secure for themselves a monopoly of a particular source 

 of honey, as bees and moths so often do. 



INJURIES DONE BY INSECTS. 



Long chapters have been written, among others by 

 those excellent old naturalists, Kirby and Spence, on 

 the injuries and benefits which we receive from insects. 

 Nearly all our crops are injured by insects, and sometimes 

 the injury amounts to destruction. We may see the 

 gooseberry- bushes stripped of their leaves year after year ; 

 apples often fall half-grown to the ground, or are cankered 

 at the core as the result of insect- attacks. Time would 

 fail even to name the insects which prey upon the most 

 useful of our plants. Let us just mention the locust, the 

 wireworm, the turnip-fly, and the various sorts of beetles 

 called weevils, as pernicious examples. Stores of grain, 

 furs, skins, woollen fabrics and other valuable products 

 are continually ravaged by insects. The white ants of 



