SOCIAL ECONOMY. 247 
already stated, that she may pass over a yéar, and 
not build till the third summer. Like all other 
insects, however, she dies when she has effected the 
great object of her existence, namely, the per- 
petuation of her species. Only by deferrmg the 
accomplishment of this object can her life be pro- 
longed. “We term sleep a death; and yet it is 
waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that 
are the house of life.”* Yet these spirits, or, as we 
call them in modern physiology, the vitality, of the 
queen-wasp would scarcely preserve her life for so 
many months without the necessary fuel. She would 
die, if the wear and tear of her body were not 
reduced to a minimum during her long torpor, and if 
she had not a large supply of food laid up in the fat 
mass of her abdomen, to make her independent of 
the winter storms which rage outside her hiding- 
place. 
The proceedings of a swarm of wasps are more 
easily explicable on ordinary physiological grounds 
than those of a hive of bees. From the moment it has 
been determined that this or that bee-larva shall be 
developed into a perfect female—a queen-bee—there 
is a mystery about the insect which only those who 
have made bees their peculiar study, and have an in- 
tuitive knowledge of all that is goimg on in a hive, can 
rightly appreciate. Ihave had no such opportunities 
of studying, and have no such intuitive knowledge 
of bees; I can only accept on the authority of others 
what is said of the almost reason which directs all 
their proceedings, which regulates the proportion of 
* Browne, ‘ Religio Medici,’ II, §12. 
