The Progress of the Race 
ning of March the impregnated female 
who has survived the winter starts to con- 
struct her nest, either underground or in 
a bush, according to the species to which 
she belongs. She is alone in the world, 
in the midst of awakening spring. She 
chooses a spot, clears -it, digs it and car- 
pets it. Then she erects her somewhat 
shapeless waxen cells, stores these with 
honey and pollen, lays and hatches the 
eggs, tends and nourishes the larve that 
spring to life, and soon is surrounded by 
a troop of daughters who aid her in all 
her labours, within the nest and without, 
while some of them soon begin to lay in 
their turn. ‘The construction of the cells 
improves; the colony grows, the comfort 
increases. The foundress is still its soul, 
its principal mother, and finds herself 
now at the head of a kingdom which 
might be the model of that of our honey- 
bee. But the model is still in the rough. 
399 
