LETTER XIX. 
SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
PERFECT SOCIETIES CONTINUED. (The Hive-bee.) 
"THE glory of an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, you 
will acknowledge, is wonderfully manifested by the va- 
ried proceedings of those social tribes of which I have 
lately treated: but it shines forth with a brightness still 
more intense in the instincts that actuate the hzve-bee, 
and which I am next to lay before you. Indeed, of all 
the insect associations, there are none that have more 
excited the attention and admiration of mankind in every 
age, or been more universally interesting, than the colo- 
nies of these little useful creatures. Both Greek and 
Roman writers are loud in their praise; nay, some phi- 
losophers were so enamoured of them, that, as I observed 
before*, they devoted a large portion of their time to the 
study of their history. Whether the knowledge they 
acquired was at all equivalent to the years that were 
spent in the attainment of it, may be doubted: for, were 
it so, it is probable that Aristotle and Pliny would have 
given a clearer and more consistent account of the in- 
4 Vo, I. 4th Ed, 485, 
