UNDER THE MAPLES 



vision is evidently to make sure that the males 

 discover the queen in her course through the air. 



The guards that take their stand at the gate, 

 the bees that become fans at the entrance to venti- 

 late the hive, the nurses, the bees that bring the 

 bee-bread, the bees that pack it into the cells, the 

 bees that go forth to find a home for the new swarm, 

 the sweepers and cleaners of the hive, the workers 

 that bring propolis to seal up the cracks and crevices 

 — all act in obedience to the voiceless Spirit of 

 the Hive. 



After we have discounted Maeterlinck so far as 

 the facts will bear us out in doing, it remains to 

 be said that he is the philosopher of the insect 

 world. If Fabre is the Homer, as he himself has 

 said, Maeterlinck is the Plato of that realm. How 

 wisely he speaks of the insect world in his latest 

 volume, "Mountain Paths": 



The insect does not belong to our world. The other 

 animals, the plants even, notwithstanding their dumb 

 life and the great secrets which they cherish, do not seem 

 wholly foreign to us. In spite of all, we feel a certain 

 earthly brotherhood with them. They often surprise 

 and amaze our intelligence, but do not utterly upset it. 

 There is something, on the other hand, about the insect 

 that does not belong to the habits, the ethics, the psy- 

 chology of our globe. One would be inclined to say that 

 the insect comes from another planet, more monstrous, 

 more energetic, more insane, more atrocious, more 

 infernal than our own. One would think that it was 

 born of some comet that had lost its course and died 

 demented in space. 



162 



