PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 35 
them their food; so that scarcely a single pair in many 
millions get into a place of safety, fulfill the first law of 
nature, and lay the foundation of a new community. At 
this time they are seen running upon the ground, the 
male after the female, and sometimes two chasing one, 
and contending with great eagerness, regardless of the 
innumerable dangers that surround them, who shall win 
the prize. 
The workers, who are continually prowling about in 
their covered ways, occasionally meet with one of these 
pairs, and, being impelled by their instinct, pay them 
homage, and they are elected as it were ta be king and 
queen, or rather father and mother, of a new colony? : 
all that are not so fortunate, inevitably perish; and, con- 
sidering the infinite host of their enemies, probably in the 
course of the following day. ‘The workers, as soon as 
this election takes place, begin to inclose their new rulers 
in a small chamber of clay, before described, suited to 
their size, the entrances to which are only large enough 
to admit themselves and the neuters, but much too small 
for the royal pair to pass through ;—so that their state of 
royalty is a state of confinement, and so continues during 
the remainder of their existence. The impregnation of 
the female is supposed to take place after this confine- 
renee and she soon begins to furnish the infant colony 
with new inhabitants. The care of feeding her and her 
male companion devolves upon the industrious larve, 
@ In this these animals vary from the usual instinct of the social 
Hymenoptera, the ants, the wasps, and the humble-bees—with whom 
the females lay the first foundations of the colonies, unassisted by any 
neuters ;—but in the swarms of the hive-bee an election may perhaps. 
in some instances be said to take place. b Vou.I. 4th Ed. 511. 
p@ 
