METAMORPHOSIS 6 9 



into a more beautiful generally, and certainly 

 always more highly specialised creature. Short 

 fleshy legs are exchanged for elaborate many- 

 jointed feet. Strong jaws give place to a won- 

 derful sucking tube, which can extract the nectar 

 from the tiniest flowers. Simple, almost useless 

 eyes become wonderful, multi-lensed, optical 

 instruments. These and a hundred other 

 changes, almost too marvellous to believe had 

 we not seen the miracle take place in front of 

 us, all occur while the creature is, to outward 

 appearance, dead and lifeless. 



It is almost needless to say that the bee belongs 

 to the class which undergoes a complete metamor- 

 phosis. Further, in common with its cousins, the 

 ants and wasps, it differs from the majority by 

 attending carefully to its young during its early 

 stages. Instead of laying its egg in the food, the 

 egg is laid in a prepared cell, and food supplied as 

 it is required. 



This method of procedure is confined to colo- 

 nies which live in the social manner, and indeed 

 is so closely bound up with it that it would be hard 

 to say whether the instinct of attending to the 

 young produced the social colony, or whether the 

 habit of congregating in families developed the 

 desire to care for the welfare of posterity. Which- 

 ever may have been the case, this desire is mani- 

 fested in the ants and bees to a most marked 

 extent. 



