206 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
more so than the hive bee, which is so extremely regular 
in its ways. With an explosion almost like a little 
bomb shot out of a flower; with an immense hun, 
nlmost startling, boom! the great bombus hurls himsclf 
up in the air from under foot; well named—boom— 
bombus. Is it correct or is it only a generalisation, that 
insects like ants and hive bees, who live in great and 
well-organised societies, are more free from the attacks 
of parasites than the comparatively solitary wild bees? 
Ants are, indeed, troubled with some parasites, but these 
do not seem to multiply very greatly, and do not 
seriously injure the populousness of the nest. They 
have enemies which seize them, but an enemy is not a 
parasite. On the other hand, too, they have mastered a 
variety of insects,and use them for their delectation and 
profit. Hive bees are likewise fairly free from parasites, 
unless, indeed, their so-called dysentery is caused by 
some minute microbe. These epidemics, however, are 
rare. Take it altogether, the hive bee appears compara- 
tively free of parasites. Enemies they have, but that is 
another matter. 
Have these highly civilised insects arrived in some 
manner at a solution of the parasite problem? Have 
‘they begun where human civilisation may be said to 
have ended, with a diligent study of parasitic life? All 
our scientific men are now earnestly engaged in the 
study of bacteria, microbes, mycclium, and yeast, infini- 
tesimally minute fungi of every description, while mean- 
time the bacillus is eating away the lives of a heavy 
percentage of our population. Ants live in communities 
which might be likened to a hundred Londons dotted 
about England, so are their nests in a meadow, or, still 
more striking, on a heath. Their immense crowds, the 
population of China to an acre, do not breed disease. 
