30 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



disturbed at the noises we make near the hive ; but they 

 regard these perhaps as not of their world, and possessed of 

 no interest for them. It is possible that we on our side only 

 hear a fractional part of the sounds that the bees produce, 

 and that they have many harmonies to which our ears are 

 not attuned. We soon shall see with what startling rapidity 

 they are able to understand each other, and adopt concerted 

 measures, when for instance the great honey thief, the huge 

 Sphinx Atropos, the sinister moth that bears a death's head 

 on its back, penetrates into the hive, humming its own strange 

 note, which acts as a kind of irresistible incantation ; the 

 news spreads quickly from group to group, and from the 

 guards at the threshold to the workers on the furthest combs, 

 the whole population quivers. 



H 



It was for a long time believed that when these wise 

 bees, generally so prudent, so far-sighted and economical, 

 abandoned the treasures of their kingdom and flung themselves 

 upon the uncertainties of life, they were yielding to a kind 

 of irresistible folly, a mechanical impulse, a law of the species, 

 a decree of nature, or to the force that for all creatures lies 

 hidden in the revolution of time. It is our habit, in the case 

 of the bees no less than our own, to regard as fatality all that 

 we do not as yet understand. But now that the hive has 

 surrendered two or three of its material secrets, we have 

 discovered that this exodus is neither instinctive nor inevitable. 

 It is not a blind emigration, but apparently the well-con- 

 sidered sacrifice of the present generation in favour of the 



