212 THE MABVEL OF INSECT LIFE. 



siders are inferior beings, and scarcely within the pale of 

 civilisation. 



First there is the battle of the hives, which rages 

 incessantly. The advocates for wooden hives ask sar- 

 castically whether bees, when at liberty, make their nests 

 in trusses of straw or in hollow trees ? Their opponents 

 retort that hollow trusses of straw are not found lying 

 about, and that if they were, the bees would build in 

 them in preference to any other material. But not being 

 able to find straw, they are forced to put up with hollow 

 trees or rock crevices. 



Then comes the dispute about the shape of the hives, 

 which involves the great ventilation question, manage- 

 ment of swarms, and a multitude of similar contro- 

 versies. 



So I shall touch upon none of these questions, and 

 though for convenience' sake I use the words "hive" and 

 "hive-bee," I do not intend to treat of "Debdrah," the 

 Speaker's, artificial existence, but of those points of her 

 structure and mode of life which form the texts of her 

 wordless sermons. 



First, she preaches Order, without which labour is in 

 vain. 



Nothing more orderly can be conceived than the 

 internal economy of the hive. Chief among the bees is 

 the Queen, who has but one task to perform, namely, to 

 deposit eggs from which the future generation will be 

 hatched. So valuable is her life, that it is prolonged for 

 no less than five times the length of a worker bee's life, 



