180 THE BEE-HIVES. 
their admirable sagacity, as the truly scientific device by 
which they ventilate their dwellings. Inthisimportant mat- 
ter, the beeis immensely in advance of the great mass of 
those who are called rational beings. It has, to be sure, 
no ability to decide, from an elaborate analysis of the chem- 
ical constituents of the atmosphere, how large a proportion 
of oxygen is essential to the support of life, and how rapidly 
the process of breathing converts it into a deadly poison. 
It cannot, like Liebig, demonstrate that God, by setting the 
animal and the vegetable world, the one over against the 
other, has provided that the atmosphere shall, through all 
ages, be as pure as when it first came from His creating 
hand. But shame upon us! that with all our boasted intel- 
ligence, most of us live ag though pure air was of little or 
no importance ; while the bee ventilates with a philosophical 
precision that should put to the blush our criminal neglect. 
373. It is said that ventilation cannot, in our case, be had 
without cost. Can it tuen be had for nothing, by the indus- 
trious bees? ‘Those ranks of bees, so indefatigably plying 
their busy wings, are not engaged in idle amusement; nor 
might they, as some shallow utilitarian may imagine, be 
better employed in gathering honey, or superintending some 
other department inthe economy of the hive. At great ex- 
pense of time and labor, they are supplying the rest of the 
colony with the pure air so conducive to their health and 
prosperity. What a difference between them and some 
human beings, who, ‘‘if they lived in a glass bottle, would 
insist on keeping the cork in! ”’ 
Impure air, one would think, is bad enough; but all its 
inherent vileness is stimulated to still greater activity by air- 
tight, or rather lung-tight stoves, which can economize fuel 
only by squandering health and endangering life. Not only 
our private houses, but all our places of public assemblage, 
are either unimproved with any means of ventilation, or te 
