j86 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



eruption, belching forth for lava and ashes a column of 

 winged creatures two or three times as large as common 

 white ants, and quite the opposite of them, being sofc and 

 effeminate, with good eyes, but second-rate jaws. It also 

 admits of no manner of doubt that, if you have a dinner 

 party that evening, these creatures are guided by some in- 

 fallible instinct to the lights at your table, and while some 

 perish in a holocaust, until the guttering and spluttering 

 candles are bristling like bottle-brushes with their wings, 

 others leave those useless organs in your plate, and crawl 

 in a very naked, helpless state among your food, wading 

 especially about the gravy. 



These are the facts. Upon the foundation of these, and 

 with materials drawn from bees and ants, if you have the 

 scientific faculty, you may found probable hypotheses, and 

 probable hypotheses are rapidly coming to be recognized 

 as the real substance and body of all true science. You 

 will discern, for instance, that the hard-headed little miners 

 correspond to the worker bees, while the winged things are 

 properly-matured insects going out to found new colonies. 

 Then the portentous monster which you dig out from 

 under the hill evidently answers to the queen among bees. 

 This receives collateral support from the well-known fact 



