394 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



part which feels the heat of the sun. The same cause produces a similar 

 effect upon humble-bees, wasps, and hornets. 



Amongst the bees, however, it is remarkable that ventilation goes on 

 even in the depth of winter, when it cannot be occasioned by excess of 

 heat. This, therefore, can only be regarded as a secondary cause of the 

 phenomenon. From other experiments, which, having already detained 

 you too long, I shall not here detail, it appears that penetrating and 

 disagreeable odours produce the same effect. 1 Perhaps, though Huber does 

 not say this, the odour produced by the congregated myriads of the hive 

 may be amongst the principal motives that impel its inhabitants to this 

 necessary action. 



Whatever be the proximate cause, it is, I trust, now evident to you that 

 the Author of nature, having assigned to these insects a habitation into 

 which the air cannot easily penetrate, has gifted them with the means of 

 preventing the fatal effects which would result from corrupted air. An 

 indirect effect of ventilation is the elevated temperature which these animals 

 maintain, without any effort, in their hive : but upon this I shall enlarge 

 hereafter. 



Bees are extremely neat in their persons and habitations, and remove all 

 nuisances with great assiduity, at least as far as their powers enable them. 

 Sometimes slugs or snails will creep into a hive, which with all their 

 address they cannot readily expel or carry out. But here their instinct is 

 at no loss ; for they kill them, and afterwards embalm them with propolis, 

 so as to prevent any offensive odours from incommoding them. An un- 

 happy snail, that had travelled up the sides of a glazed hive, and which 

 they could not come at with their stings, they fixed, a monument of their 

 vengeance and dexterity, by laying this substance all around the mouth of 

 its shell. 2 When they expel their excrements they go apart, that they 

 may not defile their companions ; and in winter, when prevented by 

 extreme cold, or the injudicious practice of wholly closing the door of the 

 hive, from going out for this purpose, their bodies sometimes become so 

 swelled from the accumulation of faeces in the intestines, that when at last 

 able to get out they can no longer fly, so that falling to the ground in the 

 attempt, they perish with cold, the sacrifice of personal neatness. 3 When 

 a bee is disclosed from the pupa and has left its cell, a worker comes, and 

 taking out its envelop carries it from the hive ; another removes the exuviae 

 of the larva ; and a third any filth or ordure that may remain, or any pieces 

 of wax that may have fallen in when the nascent imago broke from its con- 

 finement. But they never attempt to remove the internal lining of silk 

 that covers the walls, spun by the larva previous to its metamorphosis ; 

 because, instead of being a nuisance, it renders the cell more solid. 4 



Having now described to you the usual employments of my little fa- 

 vourites both within doors and without, I shall next enlarge a little upon 

 their language, memory, tempers, manners, and some other parts of their 

 history. 



"Brutes" (it is the remark of Mr. Knight) " have language to express 

 sentiments of love, of fear, of anger ; but they seem unable to transmit 

 any impression they have received from external objects. But the language 



i Huber, ii. 359. 2 Reaum. v. 442. 



5 Bonner On Bees, 102. 4 Reaum. ubi supra, 580 600. 



