On the Threshold of the Hive 
kindred matter I know only Michelet’s 
chapter at the end of his book “The 
Insect,” and Ludwig Biichner’s essay in 
his “ Mind in Animals.” Michelet merely 
hovers on the fringe of his subject; Buch- 
ner’s treatise is comprehensive enough, 
but contains so many hazardous state- 
ments, so much long-discarded gossip 
and hearsay, that I suspect him of never 
having left his library, never having set 
forth himself to question his heroines, 
or opened one of the many hundreds of 
rustling, wing-lit hives which we must 
profane before our instinct can be attuned 
to their secret, before we can perceive the 
spirit and atmosphere, perfume and mys- 
tery, of these virgin daughters of toil. 
The book smells not of the bee, or its 
honey ; and has the defects of many a 
learned work, whose conclusions often 
are preconceived, and whose scientific at- 
tainment is composed of a vast array of 
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