BOOK XI. XVI. 49-xvii. 52 



ofF specimens of either kind before they have wings, 

 they serve as very acceptable food for their mothers. 

 As time goes on they give them drops of food and HaieMngof 

 sit on them, buzzing more than at any other time, ''""**' 

 with the object, it is thought, of producing the 

 warmth needed for hatching out the grubs, until 

 they break the membranes that enclose each of them 

 Hke eggshells and the whole band emerges. This 

 was observed at Rome on the suburban estate of a 

 certain ex-consul, who had hives made of the 

 transparent horn of a lantern. The brood grows up 

 in about six weeks. In some hives what is called a 

 wart is formed, a hard hmip of bitter wax, when the 

 bees have not produced offspring out of the comb, 

 owing to disease or sloth or natural infertihty ; this 

 is the bees' form of abortion. But as soon as they 

 are hatched out they get to work with their mothers 

 under some sort of tuition, and the youthful king is 

 escorted by a retinue of his peers. Several kings Seiectionoj 

 are begun to be produced, so that there may not be ^"""'^ ^'"^ 

 a lack of them ; but afterwards, when the offspring 

 sprung from these has begun to be grown up, by a 

 unanimous vote they kill the worst of them so that 

 they may not divide up the forces. They are of two 

 kinds, the better sort red and the inferior kind black 

 or speckled. All of them are always exceptionally 

 well-formed and twice as large as the others ; their 

 wings are shorter, their legs straight, their bearing 

 more lofty, and they have a spot on their brow that 

 shines white in a kind of fillet ; they also differ from 

 the common herd a great deal by their brilHant colour. 



XVII. Now let somebody raise the questions ^a-s a «w?- 

 whether Ilercules was one person and how many uuoffiM 

 Father Libers there were. and all the other puzzles""^., 



» privueges. 



