156 Traces of Unity in the 



of being should, ipso motu, set at nought the power of 

 the cataract to keep it back : and, he is not unlikely, if 

 he listen attentively to hear an echo of the music 

 of the spheres in the rushing of the waters, and to 

 think that the fish is obeying blindly the mandates of a 

 law which rules the river, no less than the living things 

 in the river. The salmon seems to be driven on with as 

 little power of choosing its way as the swallow, or even 

 with less, for in the case of the fish it may be supposed 

 that there is an actual indisposition to pass from the 

 river to the sea and from the sea back again to the 

 river. Nay, the wonder is that, in changing from fresh 

 water to salt-water, and from salt-water back again to fresh- 

 water, the fish does not share the fate of the parasites 

 by which it is infested, dying along with the fresh- 

 water parasites on passing from the river into the sea, 

 dying with the salt-water parasites on passing back from 

 the sea to the river a wonderful provision by which, 

 among other things, the fish is clean and fit for the table 

 when it is most likely to be taken, that is when it has 

 been long enough in the river to lose its salt-water 

 parasites and yet not long enough there to be infested 

 by the fresh-water parasites. 



The story of the instinctive movements of the hive- 

 bee, as put on record by blind and patient Hubert, the 

 paragon of all good observers, is even yet more won- 

 derful, and, once taken up, it is difficult to lay aside the 

 book containing it while any page remains unread. It 

 is the very romance of natural history. 



The society of the hive consists of one female or 

 queen, with hundreds of males or drones, and thousands 

 of sterile females or workers. On the first fine day the 

 queen follows the drones out of the hive, and before 

 returning, she has contrived, somewhere in the air out of 



