THE BEE. 



into it, and when one quits it another takes its place, thus 

 relieving each other with all the regularity of military sentinels. 

 These bees keep constantly lenthening the cell, B F E D, as the 

 grub grows older, and duly supply it with food, which they place 

 before its mouth and round its body. The animal, which can 

 only move in a spiral direction, keeps turning to take the jelly 

 deposited before it, and thus slowly working downwards, arrives 

 insensibly nearer the orifice of the cell, just at the time that it 

 is ready to be metamorphosed into a nymph. At this moment, 

 the workers, conscious of the impending change, seal up the 

 mouth E F of the cell, and cease their attentions, leaving nature 

 to effect the last transformation. 



One of these cells is shown at d, in fig. 49. 



That the mere change in the quality of the food, combined with 

 the increased capacity and altered form of the cradle, should be 

 the means of producing a transformation, so extreme as that from 

 a worker to a queen, must be a matter of profound astonishment 

 to every reflecting mind ; so much so indeed, that without the 

 most incontestable evidence, and the power moreover of repro- 

 ducing the phenomenon at will, it could not be credited. Let 

 any one imagine how such an assertion as this, that the foal of 

 an ass by a particular sort of provender, and by being reared in 

 a stable of particular magnitude and form, could be made to grow 

 into a through bred horse, would be received. Yet, such a trans- 

 formation produced by such means would not be one whit more 

 wonderful than the change of a worker grub into a queen-bee, 

 by the means just stated. "What!" says Kirby, addressing his 

 correspondent, " you will ask, can a larger and warmer house, 

 a different and more pungent food, and a vertical instead of an 

 horizontal posture, give a bee a different-shaped tongue and 

 mandibles ; render the surface of its under-legs flat instead of 

 concave ; deprive them of the fringe of hairs that forms the basket 

 for carrying the masses of pollen, of the auricle and pecten w r hich 

 enable the workers to use these legs or feet as pincers, of the brush 

 that lines the insides of the feet ? Can they lengthen its abdomen ; 

 alter its colour and clothing ; give a curvature to its sting ; 

 deprive it of its wax pockets ; and of the vessels for secreting that 

 substance ; and render its ovaries more conspicuous and capable 

 of yielding worker and drone eggs ? " 



In the next place, can the apparently trivial circumstances just 

 mentioned alter altogether the instincts of these creatures ? Can 

 they give to one description of animals address and industry, and 

 to the other astonishing fecundity ? Can we conceive them to 

 change their very passions, tempers, and manners ? That the 

 very same foetus, if fed with more pungent food, in a higher 

 *72 



