Rep] AND SYMBOLS. 301 



in a few countries certain littoral or amphibious mammals 

 which, for the most part, only attack them as a last resort, pre- 

 ferring prey more easily devoured, and assisting them in their 

 work of extermination rather than fighting them ? Their tyranny 

 then seems at first sight absolute and without counterbalance. 

 Such, however, is not the case. The crustaceans undergo at 

 certain epochs a fatal crisis, which delivering them up defence- 

 less to external shocks and the blows of their enemies, places 

 an easy vengeance within the reach of the oppressed. These 

 epochs are their sloughing-times, when, willy nilly, with great 

 difficulty, and at the cost of the most painful and sometimes 

 the deadliest efforts, they are forced to shed their armour of 

 proof, to expose their living flesh barely covered with a thin 

 soft pellicle, and to bury themselves piteously under the sand 

 until the calcareous secretion shall be re-formed and solidified 

 anew. This is their season of fear and flight. Their hiding- 

 places are easily discoverable, and once unearthed the disarmed 

 brigands are lost beyond redemption. Myriads perish in this 

 manner, devoured by other animals, crushed among the stones, 

 or dashed in pieces against the rocks by the movement of the 

 waves. Thus Nature enforces her law of reprisal. The power 

 of all tyrants and oppressors has its fixed limits. The quarrel- 

 some crustacean and the despotic king are alike subject to the 

 hour of retaliation. MY. 



The Success of the Republican Principle. 



Bees are amongst the best workers in the world, and their 

 community is a most intelligent community. They illustrate 

 the successful working of the republican principle. Bees consti- 

 tute republics, not monarchies. The queen-bee is simply the 

 mother-bee. All the population is the issue of a common 

 mother, and each bee of the female sex can become a queen 

 that is to say, a mother-bee if it receives an appropriate nourish- 

 ment. The mother-bee is nothing more than president of the 

 republic. The vice-presidents are all those female bees which 

 at any given moment may be called by choice that is, by 

 popular election, to fulfil the functions of the sovereign, when 

 death or accident has put an end to her existence. i. 



