140 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
curve?., This occasions the inhabitant of a horizontal 
cell to be always perpendicular to the horizon, and that 
of a vertical one to be parallel with it. 
A most remarkable difference, as I lately observed, 
takes place in spinning their cocoons,—the grubs of 
workers and drones spinning complete cocoons, while 
those that are spun by the females are incomplete, or 
open at the lower end, and covering only the head and 
trunk and the first segment of the abdomen. This vari- 
ation is probably eccasioned by the different forms of the 
cells; for, if a female larva be placed in a workers cell, 
it will spin a complete cocoon; and, vice versd, if a 
worker larva be placed in a royal cell, its cocoon will be 
incomplete’. No provision of the Great Author of na- 
ture isin vain. In the present instance, the fact which 
we are considering is of great importance to the bees; 
for, were the females wholly covered by the thick texture 
of a cocoon, their destruction by their rival competitors 
for the throne could not so readily be accomplished ; 
they cither would not be able to reach them with their 
stings, or the stings might be detained by their barbs in 
the meshes of the cocoon, so that they would not be able 
to disengage them. On the use of this instinctive and 
murderous hatred of their rivals I shall soon enlarge. 
When our young prisoners are ready to emerge, they 
do not, like the ants, require the assistance of the 
workers, but themselves eat through the cocoon and the 
cell that incloses it. By a wise provision, which prevents 
the injury or destruction of a cell, they generally make 
their way through the cover or lid with which the 
@ Schirach, 4.3. f. 10. > Huber, i. 224, 
