THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE 219 



However this may be, the fraternal idea has pierced the 

 wall that divided two worlds. It is no longer wild and un- 

 recognisable, wrested from instinct by cold and hunger, or 

 by the fear of death ; it is prompted by active life. But it 

 halts once more, and in this instance arrives no further. No 

 matter, it does not lose courage ; it will seek other channels. 

 It enters the humble-bee, and, maturing there, becomes em- 

 bodied in a different atmosphere, and works its first decisive 

 miracles. 



1 10 



The humble-bees, the great hairy, noisy creatures that 

 all of us know so well, so harmless for all their apparent 

 fierceness, lead a solitary life at first. At the beginning of 

 March the impregnated female who has survived the winter 

 starts to construct her nest, either underground or in a bush, 

 according to the species to which she belongs. She is alone 

 in the world, in the midst of awakening spring. She chooses 

 a spot, clears it, digs it, and carpets it. Then she erects her 

 somewhat shapeless waxen cells, stores these with honey and 

 pollen, lays and hatches the eggs, tends and nourishes the 

 larv2 that spring to life, and soon is surrounded by a troop 

 of daughters who aid her in all her labours within the nest 

 and without, while some of them soon begin to lay in their 

 turn. The construction of the cells improves ; the colony 

 grows, the comfort increases. The foundress is still its soul, 

 its principal mother, and finds herself now at the head of a 

 kingdom which might be the model of that of our honey-bee. 

 But the mpdel is still in the rough. The prosperity of the 



