THE SWARM 



were they onlv a little less wasteful of 

 streng-th. .1 little less self-forg-etful in their 

 ardour for toil; but at the niagniticent 

 moment when the tlowers all crv to 

 them, they seem to be stricken with the 

 fatal ecstasy of work : and in less than 

 tive weeks they almost all perish, their 

 wing's broken, their bodies shrivelled and 

 covered with wounds. 



•• Tintu5 amor riorum, et generindi gloria mellis! " 



cries \'irgil in the fourth book of the 

 Georgics, wherein he devotes himself to 

 the bees, and hands down to us the 

 charining errors of the ancients, who 

 looked on nature with e\'es still dazzled 

 by the presence of imaginary gods. 



[39] 



