The Life of the Bee 



and even from the depths of the country, 

 laden with presents. One can only 

 assume that these persons must be indis- 

 pensable to the race, to which they render 

 essential service, although our means of 

 investigation have not yet enabled us to 

 discover what the precise nature of this 

 service may be. There are others, again, 

 who are incessantly engaged in the most 

 wearisome labour, whether it be in great 

 sheds full of wheels that forever turn round 

 and round, or close by the shipping, or in 

 obscure hovels, or on small plots of earth 

 that from sunrise to sunset they are con- 

 itantly delving and digging. We are led to 

 believe that this labour must be an offence, 

 and punishable. For the persons guilty 

 of it are housed in filthy, ruinous, squalid 

 cabins. They are clothed in some colour- 

 less hide. So great does their ardour 

 appear for this noxious, or at any rate 

 useless activity, that they scarcely allow 



