V 

 THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT 



84 



WE will now consider the manner in which the impreg- 

 nation of the queen-bee comes to pass. Here again 

 Nature has taken extraordinary measures to favour 

 the union of males with females of a different stock ; a strange 

 law whereto nothing would seem to compel her ; a capi'ice, 

 or initial inadvertence, perhaps, whose reparation calls for the 

 most marvellous forces her activity knows. 



If she had devoted half the genius she lavishes on crossed 

 fertilisation and other arbitrary desires to making life more 

 certain, to alleviating pain, to softening death and warding off 

 horrible accidents, the universe would probably have presented 

 an enigma less incomprehensible, less pitiable, than the one 

 we are striving to solve. But our consciousness, and the 

 interest we take in existence, must grapple, not with what 

 might have been, but with what is. 



Around the virgin queen, and dwelling with her in the 

 hive, are hundreds of exuberant males, for ever drunk on 

 honey ; the sole reason for their existence being one act of 

 love. But, notwithstanding the incessant contact of two 

 desires that elsewhere invariably triumph over every obstacle, 



i6x ^ 



