SOCIAL ECONOMY. 241 
attachment to the mother somewhat similar to the 
attachment of young birds to the female that brings 
them up? forit is the dependence which each has on 
its mother that constitutes the bond. When the 
queen is lost, this attachment is broke; they give up 
industry, probably die, or we may suppose, join some 
other hive. This is not the case with those of this 
tribe whose queen singly forms a colony; for al- 
though the queen is destroyed, yet they go on with 
that work which is their lot, as the wasp, hornet, and 
humble bee. Most probably the whole economy of the 
bee, which we so much admire, belongs to the non- 
breeders, that being their only enjoyment; therefore, 
when we talk of the wonderful economy of bees, it 
is chiefly the labourers at large we are to admire, 
although the queen gets the principal credit for the 
extent of their instinctive properties.” 
The first change that comes over the mother- 
wasp is her ceasing to make paper. This faculty, 
probably depending on the activity of the salivary 
glands, seems to be given to her, as to the workers, 
only for a time. For should the early brood, as in 
an instance presently to be narrated, be only drones 
who cannot, or at least do not, continue her work, 
after a certain time the growth of the nest ceases. 
In the ordmary course of things, however, by the 
time she is exhausted the worker brood has begun 
to appear, and they relieve her of this part of her 
task, and of the daily increasing labour of feeding 
the larve. She restricts herself henceforth to her 
purely maternal duty of laying eggs and, as her 
increasing size makes almost a matter of necessity, 
now rarely leaves the interior of the nest. Brood 
R 
