WORKING BEES. , 253 



of her gauze drapery, those filmy wings in which alone her 

 outward gifts, instead of surpassing, are inferior to those of 

 her subjects. 



Come we now to the busy workers, of whom the numerous 

 sisterhood, the million of the hive, is made up. From these 

 the Bee character has been always painted, and painted justly, 

 as loyal and patriotic, laborious, patient and skilful, to which 

 might be added maternally affectionate; for though never 

 mothers themselves, the latter propensity possesses them so 

 strongly as to convert their office as nurses to the queen's pro- 

 geny, to all, in short, of the infant community, into what 

 would seem truly a labour of love. Although their instinctive 

 virtues (if we may use the term) are so immeasurably expanded 

 beyond the narrow growth of those apparent in their royal 

 mistress, compression is one of the agents employed to effect 

 this mighty difference between them ; and the worker Bee, is, 

 it would seem, made a useful member of the body politic, by a 

 process very similar to that which renders the foot of a Chinese 

 lady a somewhat useless member of her body natural. 



The baby Bee, destined to become a Bee labourer, finds 

 herself, on emerging from the egg, an inhabitant of one of those 

 common six-sided cells, which (as it would appear) is so pro- 

 portioned as in some measure to limit her growth, and thus 

 prevent her from attaining her full development. To this 

 outward restriction is superadded an inward check in the 

 quality of the food administered by her nurses. In lieu of the 



