INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 507 
superfluous. Every one knows that at the same moment 
of time the citizens of a hive are employed in the most 
varied and opposite operations. Some are collecting 
pollen ; others are in search of honey; some busied at 
home in the first construction of the cells; others in 
giving them their last polish; others in ventilating the 
hive; others again in feeding the young brood and the 
like. 
Now, how are we to account for this regularity of 
procedure—this undeviating accuracy with which the 
precise instinct wanted is excited—this total absence of 
all confusion in the employment by each inhabitant of 
the hive, of that particular instinct out of so many which 
the good of the community requires? No thinking man 
ever witnesses the complexness and yet regularity and 
efficiency of a great establishment, such as the Bank of 
England, or the Post-office, without marvelling that even 
human reason can put together with so little friction 
and such slight deviations from correctness, machines 
whose wheels are composed not of wood and iron, but 
of fickle mortals of a thousand different inclinations, 
powers, and capacities. But if such establishments be 
surprising even with reason for their prime mover, 
how much more so is a hive of bees whose proceedings 
are guided by their instincts alone! We can conceive 
that the sensations of hunger experienced on awaking in 
the morning should excite into action their instinct of 
gathering honey. But all are hungry: yet all do not rush 
out in search of flowers. What sensation is it that detains a 
portion of the hive at home, unmindful of the gnawings of 
an empty stomach, busied in domestic arrangements, until 
the return of their roving companions? Of those that fly 
es 
