PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. S67 



the perfect or imago state (it is to be supposed that the author is here 

 speaking of a hive which has lost the old queen), soon after this event 

 goes to visit the royal cells that are still inhabited. She darts with fury 

 upon the first with which she meets ; by means of her jaws she gnaws 

 a hole large enough to introduce the end of her abdomen, and with her 

 sting, before the included female is in a condition to defend herself or 

 resist her attack, she gives her a mortal wound. The workers, who re- 

 main passive spectators of this assassination, after she quits the victim of 

 her jealousy, enlarge the breach that she has made, and drag forth the 

 carcass of a queen just emerged from the thin membrane that envelops 

 the pupa. If the object of her attack be still in the pupa state, she is 

 stimulated by a less violent degree of rage, and contents herself with 

 making a breach in the cell : when this happens, the death of the inclosed 

 insect is equally certain, for the workers enlarge the breach, pull it out, 

 and it perishes. 1 If it happens, as it sometimes does, that two queens are 

 disclosed at the same time, the care of Providence to prevent the hive 

 from being wholly despoiled of a governor is singularly manifested by a 

 remarkable trait in their instinct, which, when mutual destruction seems 

 inevitable, makes them separate from each other as if panic-struck. 

 '* Two young queens," says M. Huber, "left their cells one day, almost 

 at the same moment ; as soon as the} 7 came within sight, they darted upon 

 each other, as if inflamed by the most ungovernable anger, and placed 

 themselves in such an attitude that the antennae of each were held by the 

 jaws of its antagonist ; head was opposed to head, trunk to trunk, abdo- 

 men to abdomen ; and they had only to bend the extremity of the latter, 

 and they would have fallen reciprocal victims to each other's sting." But 

 nature having decreed that these duels should not be fatal to both combat- 

 ants, as soon as they were thus circumstanced a panic fear seemed to 

 strike them, and they disengaged themselves, and each fled away. After a 

 few minutes were expired, the attack was renewed in a similar manner with 

 the same issue ; till at last one suddenly seizing the other by her wing, 

 mounted upon her and inflicted a mortal wound. 2 



The combats I have here described to you took place between virgin 

 queens ; but M. Huber found that those which had been impregnated 

 were actuated by the same animosity, and attacked royal cells with a fury 

 equally destructive. When another fertile queen had been introduced 

 into this hive, a singular scene ensued, which proves how well aware the 

 workers are that they cannot prosper with two sovereigns. Soon after 

 she was introduced, a circle of bees was formed round the stranger, not 

 to compliment her on her arrival, or pay her the usual homage, but to 

 confine her, and prevent her escape ; for they insensibly agglomerated 

 themselves in such numbers round her, and hemmed her in so closely, 

 that in about a minute she was completely a prisoner. While this was 

 transacting, what was equally remarkable, other workers assembled in 

 clusters round the legitimate queen, and impeded all her motions ; so that 

 soon she was not more at liberty than the intruder. It seemed as if the 

 bees foresaw the combat that was to ensue between the two rivals, and 

 were impatient for the event ; for they only confined them when they 

 appeared to avoid each other. To witness the homage, respect, and love 

 that they usually manifest to their lawful ruler, the anxiety concerning he? 



i Huber, i. 171. 2 Huber, i. 174. 



