DEATH S HEAD SPHINX. 



37 



more fatal to the bees, we resolved to prevent its 

 access, by contracting the entrance of the hive by 

 a kind of grating large enough to admit none but its 

 proper tenants. This plan had complete success, 

 quiet was restored, and the devastation ceased. 



" The same precautions had not been universally 

 taken ; but we observed that the bees, left to them- 

 selves, had provided for their own security. Without 

 any foreign aid, they had barricaded themselves, by 

 means of a thick wall of propolis and wax, rising 

 behind the entrance of the hive, sometimes in the 

 entrance itself, and completely obstructing it, but 

 penetrated by passages for one or two workers at a 

 time. 



" The operations of man and of the insect had 

 completely coincided. 



" The works which the bees had established were 

 of very various formation. Here was a single wall, 

 whose opening arcades were disposed in its higher 

 part ; there several bulwarks behind each other 

 recalled the bastions of our citadels. Gateways, 

 masked by walls in front, opened on the face of those 

 of the second row, while they did not correspond 

 with the apertures of the first. Sometimes a series 

 of intersecting arcades permitted free egress to the 

 bees, but refused admittance to their enemies. These 

 fortifications were massy ; their substance firm and 

 compact. 



" As such casemated gates are not constructed by 

 bees without urgent necessity, we cannot ascribe 

 their proceedings to any of those demonstrations of 



