Phenomena of Instinct. 1 6 1 



eggs must have effect in preventing a simultaneous 

 development of all the queens, but it is not sufficient to 

 insure the presence of only one adult queen in the royal 

 cells at the same time. Often, indeed, there are many 

 adult queens in these cells at the same time, and now 

 and then, in spite of all the guard can do to prevent it, 

 the prisoners break loose and a battle ensues in which 

 only the strongest remains alive at the end. Nay, it 

 may happen that the hive is left queen less by all the 

 rival queens losing their lives in this way, or by the 

 death of all the royal brood from other causes. In 

 a case like this it might be supposed that the society of 

 the hive would be dissolved for want of a queen, but it 

 is not so. A queen must be had, and very soon the 

 workers provide what is wanted. And this is how they 

 set to work. They extemporize a royal cell by throwing 

 three or four of their own cells into one, and by making 

 sundry other changes which are needful ; with one 

 exception, they sacrifice the young worms belonging to 

 these cells ; they feed the favoured one with the royal 

 jelly supplied to the royal worms ; they close the cell 

 in due time; and, lo ! when the perfect insect emerges 

 from the nymph it is, not an ordinary worker, but a 

 queen. The result is constant if the young worm be 

 young enough, that is, if she be not more than three 

 days old. The infant worm of the ordinary worker, so 

 treated, is always transformed into a royal worm, which 

 in due time becomes a queen in every way as perfect as 

 any of the queens which perished in the battle that left 

 the hive queenless. As to the fact of the metamorphosis 

 there can be no doubt. It is this fact, often verified, 

 which Hubert speaks of as the great discovery of 

 Schirach. Nor is this the only way in which the place 

 of the queen may be supplied when the royal race is 



