NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 163 



paying the most respectful and assidnons attention to 

 objects wliicli, Jiad its ovaiies l)een developed, it would 

 have hated and pursued witli the most vindictive fury till 

 it had destroyed them ! " * All these changes may be pro- 

 duced by a mere modification of the emljryotic progress, 

 which it is within the power of the adult animals to effect. 

 But it is important to observe that this modification is 

 different from working a direct change upon the end:>ryo. 

 It is not the different food which eflfects a metamor- 

 phosis. All that is done is merely to accelerate the period 

 of the insect's perfection. By the arrangements made 

 and the food given, the embryo becomes sooner fit 

 for being ushered forth in its imago or perfect state. 

 Development may be said to be thus arrested at a par- 

 ticular stage — that early one at Avhich the female sex is 

 complete. In the other circumstances it is allowed to go 

 on four days longer, and a stage is then reached between 

 the two sexes, which in this species is designed to be the 

 perfect condition of a large portion of the community. 

 Four days more make it a perfect male. It is at the 

 same time to be observed tliat there is, from the period 

 of oviposition, a destined distinction between the sexes of 

 the young bees. The queen lays the wdiole of the eggs 

 which are designed to become workers, before she begins 

 to lay those which become males. But probably the 

 condition of her reproductive s^^stem governs the matter 

 of sex, for it is remarked that when her impregnation is 

 delayed beyond the twenty-eighth day of her entire 

 existence, she lays only eggs M'hich become males. 



We have here, it will be admitted, a most remarkable 



illustration of the principle of development, although in 



an operation limited to the production of sex only. Let 



it not be said that the phenomena concerned in tlie 



* Kill)}' and Sponco. 



F 2 



