AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. Si 5 



winter, they would increase so rapidly, that not only 

 would all the bees, flies, and other animals on which they 

 prey, be extirpated, but man himself find them a grievous 

 pest. It is necessary, therefore, that the great mass should 

 annually perish ; but that they may suffer as little as pos- 

 sible, the Creator, mindful of the happiness of the smallest 

 of his creatures, has endowed a part of the society, at the 

 destined time, with the wonderful instinct which, pre- 

 viously to their own death, makes them the executioners 

 of the rest. 



Wasps in the construction of their nests have solely 

 in* view the accommodation of their young ones ; and to 

 these their cells are exclusively devoted. Bees, on the 

 contrary, (I am speaking of the common hive-bee,) ap- 

 propriate a considerable number of their cells to the re- 

 ception of honey intended for the use of the society. Yet 

 the education of the young brood is their chief object, 

 and to this they constantly sacrifice all personal and sel- 

 fish considerations. In a new swarm the first care is to 

 build a series of cells to serve as cradles ; and little or 

 no honey is collected until an ample store of bee-bread, 

 as it is called, has been laid up for their food. This bee- 

 bread is composed of the pollen of flowers, which the 

 workers are incessantly employed in gathering, flying 

 from flower to flower, brushing from the stamens their 

 yellow treasure, and collecting it in the little baskets with 

 which their hind legs are so admirably provided ; then 

 hastening to the hive, and having deposited their booty, 

 returning for a new load. The provision thus furnished 

 by one set of labourers is carefully stored up by another, 

 until the eggs which the queen-bee has laid, and which 



