282 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



bee as perfect, which, when used against many kinds of 

 enemies, cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward 

 serratures, and thus inevitably causes the death of the 

 insect by tearing out its viscera? 



If we look at the sting of the bee, as having existed 

 in a remote progenitor, as a boring and serrated instru- 

 ment, like that in so many members of the same great 

 order, and that it has since been modified but not per- 

 fected for its present purpose, with the poison originally 

 adapted for some other object, such as to produce galls, 

 since intensified, we can perhaps understand how it is 

 that the use of the sting should so often cause the 

 insect's own death: for if on the whole the power of 

 stinging be useful to the social community, it will fulfil 

 all the requirements of natural selection, though it may 

 cause the death of some few members. If we admire the 

 truly wonderful power of scent by which the males of 

 many insects find their females, can we admire the pro- 

 duction for this single purpose of thousands of drones, 

 which are utterly useless to the community for any other 

 purpose, and which are ultimately slaughtered by their 

 industrious and sterile sisters? It may be difficult, but 

 we ought to admire the savage instinctive hatred of the 

 queen -bee, which urges her to destroy the young queens, 

 her daughters, as soon as they are born, or to perish 

 herself in the combat; for undoubtedly this is for the 

 good of the community; and maternal love or maternal 

 hatred, though the latter fortunately is most rare, is all 

 the same to the inexorable principle of natural selection. 

 If we admire the several ingenious contrivances by which 

 orchids and many other plants are fertilized through in- 

 sect agency, can we consider as equally perfect the elabo- 



