CHAP. X. THE HUMBLE BEES. 353 



a part in the cleaning of the cells, and prepare them to 

 receive another egg, after the perfect insect is disclosed 

 and has left it vacant. 



(355.) That wasps place centinels at the entrance of 

 their nests, there is every reason to believe ; Mr. Knight, 

 the well-known horticulturalist, mentions, that if a 

 nest of wasps is approached without alarming the inha- 

 bitants, and if all communication be suddenly cut off 

 between those out of the nest and those within it, no 

 provocation will induce the former to defend it, or even 

 themselves: but if one escape from within, it comes 

 with a very different temper, and appears commissioned 

 to avenge the public wrongs, and prepared to sacri- 

 fice its life in the execution of its orders. Heat ap- 

 pears to have a great effect on the energies of these 

 creatures ; for, in very cold summers, they are be- 

 numbed and die prematurely. In rainy autumns, 

 during which the grounds are inundated, vast num- 

 bers of nests are destroyed, as they are generally made 

 in the banks of rivers and canals. As winter ap- 

 proaches, their sanguinary habits of preying upon flies 

 and other insects subside, as if they were already 

 affected by old age, and knew that it was useless longer 

 to attend to their young, or to recruit themselves at 

 the expense of another's life. We are not informed as 

 to the precise species upon which the foregoing ob- 

 servations were made. This circumstance is to be re- 

 gretted j since there is, doubtless, as great a diversity 

 of manners in this family of insects, as in any other; 

 and what will be true of one, may be totally inconsistent 

 with the economy of another. 



(356.) The different HUMBLE BEES are social in- 

 sects, and come next under consideration. They form 

 an extensive family, and hold a station between the 

 wasps and the true, or honey, bees. Their manners are 

 in unison with this relationship ; for, although they 

 collect honey, and make wax, they do not construct 

 their cells with the same regularity of architecture. 

 Whether this inferiority has originated the name of 



A A 



