GOVERNMENT OF WASPS AND BEES. 307 



tinue to labour in the building of cells, with the same 

 assiduity as their progeny. The foundress wasp, or 

 humble-bee, also, is not the mother of the colony, as 

 is the case with a hive-queen ; for instead of produc- 

 ing at her first laying- the eggs of workers only, she 

 deposits those of both males and females : but the 

 latter, when hatched, and come to maturity, are 

 only a sixth part of the size of their mother, and only 

 lay the eggs of males. 



Such are the various orders among the population 

 of a community of social wasps or humble-bees ; but 

 it does not appear that there prevails among them 

 anything like what we understand by subordination. 

 Every one, indeed, seems to do what seems right in 

 its own eyes, without taking counsel of its neighbour. 

 The only circumstances which look like appointments 

 to particular duties, occur in the instance of the male 

 wasps, which are riot an idle race, like those among 

 ants and hive-bees. They do not, indeed, forage for 

 building-materials or provisions, nor take any con- 

 cern in the business of nursing; but, if we may 

 trust the younger Huber, they act as the scavengers 

 of the nest, by sweeping the floors of the terraces and 

 the passages leading to them, carrying off every 

 species of rubbish, as well as the bodies of those 

 individuals which chance to die. When a burden, 

 also, is too heavy for the strength of an individual, 

 two unite in the task, as is done by the workers 

 among ants, and sometimes recourse is had to the 

 expedient of lightening the load by dividing it. It 

 may be, that their rendering themselves useful in this 

 manner is the reason why they are not massacred 

 like the males of hive-bees. 



Mr. T. A. Knight, when quite a boy, discovered 

 that wasps seem to appoint sentinels at the entrance 

 of their nest to give the necessary alarm in case of 

 danger, and that the intimations of no other indivi- 



