THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 147 



Some insects have an idea of order and strategy. When 

 they go to the chase or to battle, as we shall see in another 

 chapter, their army advances with a care and prudence we 

 should be far from expecting in such puny creatures ; there 

 are leaders, videttes, and reconnoitrers. 



But no act of intelligence in insects is equal to that by 

 which the bees create themselves a queen when their own 

 is lost to them. By a singular anomaly in insects it is the 

 females which, though more delicate, take charge of the 

 work ; the males do absolutely nothing. But these females 

 have none of the attributes of their sex ; they are genuine 

 neuters, in which the nurses have contrived scientifically 

 to make every principle of fecundity abort. These work- 

 women, when in the larval state, have their bee-bread doled 

 out to them with a very sparing hand ; in vain do they cry 

 and struggle at the bottom of their cells ; the step-mother 

 remains inflexible, and when the nurse thinks the proper 

 moment has arrived she inexorably incloses the larva, say- 

 ing, " Thou shalt go no further." And thus the organic 

 development is paralyzed. 



But if any accident carry off the queen from a republic 

 of bees, they miraculously know enough of the springs of 

 life to create themselves another. The nurses are aware 

 that the abortion of their fellow-beings is due to their own 

 selfishness, and they now make prodigious efforts to pro- 

 cure themselves a new sovereign. At the edge of one of 

 the combs we see them accumulate ample materials, and 

 construct a vast royal cell, forty or fifty times as large and 

 weighty as the others. After that they bear away a simple 

 work- woman from her narrow cell, and place her in this 



