NERVE SYSTEM. 47 



of this ganglionic chain gives us the key to many 

 facts, which must puzzle the apiarian who has not 

 become so overpowered by mystery that he has 

 ceased to inquire into the cause of anything. 



Unfortunately, even in our humane system of bee- 

 keeping, the tiny throng handled by such a Brobding- 

 nagian race as we relatively are, must now and again 

 meet with serious accidents, and we may have to 

 watch, with mingled astonishment and regret, the 

 rapid march of a headless victim, or the threatening 

 twisting of a detached abdomen, as its sting turns to 

 our finger, striving to execute the lex talionis. By look- 

 ing to our illustration, we see that the decapitated one 

 is still possessed of much brain substance, distributed 

 through the body, and that the isolated abdomen 

 carries with it not less than five ganglia, brain portions, 

 so to speak, which initiate movements simulating 

 design, as we have seen. The loss of the head, 

 although it absolutely puts an end to whatever 

 amount of consciousness the insect possessed when 

 uninjured, reducing it thereby to the condition of a 

 machine, is not fatal, in a restricted sense, as we 

 have already hinted ; and, curiously enough, drones in 

 confinement will sometimes live very much longer 

 without their heads than with them. After decapita- 

 tion, when the irritation set up by the cut has sub- 

 sided, they will remain perfectly quiet, but imme- 

 diately they are disturbed they begin to move, 

 running about, and possibly attempting to fly. If 

 the body is turned over, a struggle is made to 

 adjust it, and a hair-pin, dipped in phenol or ammonia, 

 or any substance emitting an irritating vapour, 



