104 HUMBLE CREATURES. 



The digestive organs are the most prominent, but 

 even these consist chiefly of a large intestiae, and 

 they do their work so efiiciently, that an immense 

 quantity of fat is stored up in the body of the little 

 larva as raw material, of which the more complicated 

 organs of the imago are buUt up. 



To these it is needless to refer, as they have already 

 been described iu detail ; quitting, therefore, the con- 

 sideration of these mysterious changes that are veiled 

 from our sight, we shall no\v direct our attention 

 to the active operations of the workers in connexion 

 with this part of the Bee's history. 



" The poor worm usually lies curled up in a half- 

 cifcle in its cell, and the only symptom of life that 

 it exhibits is by scratching with its mandibles against 

 the cell- wall, as an intimation that it requires nou- 

 rishment. It, however, becomes the tenderest object 

 of solicitude on the part of the workers ; they clean 

 and rub it, endeavour by their sonorous hum to cheer 

 it in its solitary confinement, and constantly supply 

 it with infant food (bee-bread), which they manufac- 

 ture from honey and pollen, and offer to the little 

 nursling at the point of their ligula, or tongue. The 

 whole arrangement of the attendance resembles that 

 in a foundling hospital ; the watchful nurses wander 

 from crib to crib, from cell to cell, offering food to 

 the httle inmates, stroking them with their antennje, 

 and fondling them with their delicate organs of nu- 

 trition* ". 



* Vogt, 'Untersuchimgen in den THerstaaten,' 



