The Life of the Bee 



that the queens, in their passes, present 

 their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in 

 such a fashion that the drawing of the 

 sting would prove mutually fatal ; one 

 might almost believe that, even as a god 

 or goddess was wont to interpose in the 

 combats of the Iliad, so a god or a god- 

 dess, the divinity of the race, perhaps, 

 interposes here ; and the two warriors, 

 stricken with simultaneous terror, divide 

 and fly, to meet shortly after and separate 

 again should the double disaster once more 

 menace the future of their people ; till at 

 last one of them shall succeed in surprising 

 her clumsier or less wary rival, and in 

 killing her without risk to herself. For 

 the law of the race has called for one 

 sacrifice only, 



[71] 

 The cradles having thus been destroyed 

 and the rivals all slain, the young queen is 

 256 



