The Progress of the Race 
hatched.’ It is in our domestic bees, there- 
fore, that the idea of whose movements we 
have given a cursory and incomplete picture, 
attains its most perfect form. Are these 
movements definitely, and for all time, 
arrested in each one of these species, and 
does the connecting-line exist in our imagin- 
ation alone? Let us not be too eager to 
establish a system in this ill-explored region. 
Let our conclusions be only provisional, and 
preferentially such as convey the utmost 
hope; for, were a choice forced upon us, 
occasional gleams would appear to declare 
that the inferences we are most desirous to 
draw will prove to be truest. Besides, let 
us not forget that our ignorance still is 
profound. We are only learning to open 
our eyes. A thousand experiments that 
1 It is not certain that the principle of unique royalty 
or maternity is strictly observed among the Meliponite. 
Blanchard very justly remarks that as they possess no 
sting, and are consequently less readily able than the 
workers of our own bees to kill each other, several queens 
will probably live together in the same hive. But cer- 
tainty on this point has hitherto been unattainable, owing 
to the great resemblance existing between queens and 
workers, as also to the impossibility of rearing the Melli- 
ponitze in our climate. 
329 
