THE SWARM 6i 



very soon poison their dwelling. If it be impossible for them 

 to expel or dismember it, they will proceed methodically and 

 hermetically to enclose it in a veritable sepulchre of propolis 

 and wax, which will tower fantastically above the ordinary 

 monuments of the city. In one of my hives last year I 

 discovered three such tombs side by side, erected with party- 

 walls like the cells of the comb, so that no wax should be 

 wasted. These tombs the prudent grave-diggers had raised 

 over the remains of three snails that a child had introduced 

 into the hive. As a rule, when dealing with snails, they 

 will be content to seal up with wax the orifice of the shell. 

 But in this case the shells were more or less cracked and 

 broken, and they had considered it simpler therefore to bury 

 the entire snail ; and had further contrived, in order that 

 circulation in the entrance-hall might not be impeded, a 

 number of galleries exactly proportionate, not to their own 

 girth, but to that of the males, which are almost twice as 

 large as themselves. Does not this instance, and the one 

 that follows, warrant our believing that they would in time 

 discover the cause of the queen's inability to follow them 

 through the trellis ? They have a very nice sense of pro- 

 portion, and of the space required for the movement of bodies. 

 In the regions where the hideous death's-head sphinx, the 

 Acherontia atropos, abounds, they construct little pillars of wax 

 at the entrance of the hive, narrowing the passage so as to 

 prevent the nocturnal marauder from introducing his enormous 

 abdomen. 



