The Swarm 



[37] 

 And now to return to our swarming 

 hive, where the bees have already given 

 the signal for departure, without waiting 

 for these reflections of ours to come to an 

 end. At the moment this signal is given, 

 it is as though one sudden mad impulse 

 had simultaneously flung open wide every 

 single gate in the city ; and the black 

 throng issues, or rather pours forth in 

 a double, or treble, or quadruple jet, as 

 the number of exits may be ; in a tense, 

 direct, vibrating, uninterrupted stream 

 that ^ at once dissolves and melts into 

 space, where the myriad transparent, furi- 

 ous wings weave a tissue throbbing with 

 sound. And this for some moments will 



to result from these estimates — which are of course 

 hypothetical, and deal with a matter that is exceed- 

 ingly obscure — that the intellectual value of the bee 

 and the ant must be more or less equal. 



121 



