354 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. X. 



humble, or whether tumble be not a corruption of tumble 

 (a name given to them in many parts of England, from 

 the noise they make in flight), appears uncertain. They 

 are familiar, however, to every 

 85 I \m f /' s observer, by their " gay hairy 

 jackets of yellow and black" 

 (fig. 85.), in which they buzz 

 about the gardens and pastures 

 all the summer and autumn. The 

 different ranks of these insects 

 are, as usual, three; and they 

 correspond to the wasps in having 

 two races of females, one large, 

 and the other small. The larger females are the founders 

 of hives : they emerge in autumn, and pass the winter 

 under ground, in a particular apartment, which, accord- 

 ing to M. Huber, is separate from the nest, and ren- 

 dered warm by a carpeting of moss and grass ; but, 

 as there is no supply of food laid in, the insect passes 

 the dreary months of winter in a torpid state. The first 

 gleams of a spring sun call them from their retreat ; 

 and, mindful of the future progeny they are qualified 

 to bring forth, they begin to labour on the found- 

 ations of a new colony. Besides the care of her infant 

 progeny, the queen-mother is the chief architect in the 

 construction of the cells in which her eggs are to be 

 laid, which, M. Huber seems to think, the workers 

 are not able to complete by themselves. On this point 

 our authors Messrs. Kirby and Spence seem to have 

 fallen into obscurity ; because, if, as they assert, " the 

 workers are never known to survive the cold of winter," 

 how can they possibly .assist in forming the cells for 

 the reception of the eggs laid by the queen-mother in 

 the following spring? " So rapidly," observes M. Huber, 

 ** does the female proceed in this business, that, in half 

 an hour, she will build a cell, fill it with the pollen 

 food, deposit one or two eggs, and, finally, cover them 

 in. The workers as the most essential part of the 

 community are first produced; these come forth from 



