86 UNDER THE OPEN SKY 



that the field-mouse has built. Perhaps a 

 mink, a hawk, or an owl has relieved the 

 home of its proper owner, and she takes 

 immediate possession. Perhaps it is a hol- 

 low fence-rail that catches her eye. But 

 whatever be the hollow she preempts, in it 

 she carefully puts together a few little cups 

 of a yellowish-brown wax, which she fills 

 with a pasty mass of pollen and honey, and 

 in each of which she lays an egg or two. 

 These hatch before long, and from them 

 come her first subjects. They are workers; 

 females, though never to be queens. Na- 

 ture has doomed them to be old maids and 

 drudges. But they know no better, and go 

 contentedly to work. 



The queen now gives up all employment 

 outside the palace, and inside her duty is 

 almost confined to laying eggs. The one 

 great badge of their sex which the workers 

 share with their queen is the sting, for it 

 is a part of the egg-laying apparatus, though 

 eggs they will never lay. 



But the possession of this instrument by 

 the workers is one of the proofs amongst 



