THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY 87 



and feelings by means either of a phonetic vocabulary, or, 

 more probably, of some kind of tactile language or magnetic 

 intuition, corresponding perhaps to senses and properties of 

 matter that are wholly unknown to us. And such intuition 

 well might lodge in the mysterious antennas — containing, 

 in the case of the workers, according to Cheshire's calculation, 

 twelve thousand tactile hairs and five thousand " smell-hollows " 

 — wherewith they probe and fathom the darkness. For the 

 mutual understanding of the bees is not confined to their 

 habitual labours ; the extraordinary also has a name and 

 place in their language, as is proved by the manner in 

 which news good or bad, normal or supernatural, will at 

 once spread in the hive — the loss or return of the mother, 

 for instance, the entrance of an enemy, the intrusion of a 

 strange queen, the approach of a band of marauders, the 

 discovery of treasure, &c. And so characteristic is their 

 attitude, so essentially different their murmur at each of 

 these special events, that the experienced apiarist can with- 

 out difficulty tell what is troubling the crowd that moves 

 distractedly to and fro in the shadow. 



If you desire a more definite proof, you have but to 

 watch a bee that shall just have discovered a few drops 

 of honey on your window-sill or the corner of your table. 

 She will immediately gorge herself with it, and so eagerly 

 that you will have time, without fear of disturbing her, 

 to mark her tiny belt with a touch of paint. But this 

 gluttony of hers is all on the surface. The honey will not 

 pass into the stomach proper, into what we might call her 

 personal stomach, but remains in the sac, the first stomach 

 • — that of the community, if one may so express it. This 



