THE VEGETABLE MND ANIMAL, KINGDOMS. Ill 



* 



To this conclusion it must be greatly conducive that the 

 law of organic development is still daily seen at work to 

 certain effects, only somewhat short of a transition from 

 species to species Sex we have seen to be a matter ot 

 development. There is an instance, in an humble depart- 

 ment of the animal world, of arrangements being made 

 by the animals themselves for adjusting this law to the 

 production of a particular sex. Amongst bees, as amongst 

 several other insect tribes, there is in each community 

 but one true female, the queen bee, the workers being 

 false females or neuters ; that is to say, sex is carried on 

 \n them to a point where it is attended by sterility. The 

 preparatory states of the queen bee occupy sixteen days^ 

 those of the neuters, twenty; and those of males twenty-" 

 four. Now it is a fact, settled by innumerable observa- 

 tions and experiments, that the bees can so modify a 

 worker in the larva state, that, when it emerges from the 

 pupa, it is found to be a queen or true female. For this 

 purpose they enlarge its cell, make a pyramidal hollow to 

 allow of its assuming a vertical instead of a horizontal 

 position, keep it warmer than other larvae are kept, and 

 feed it with a peculiar kind of food. From these simple 

 circumstances, leading to a shortening of the embryotic 

 condition, results a creature different in form, and also in 

 dispositions, from what would have otherwise been pro- 

 duced. Sorr^e of the organs possessed by the worker are 

 here altogether wanting. We have a creature " destined 

 to enjoy love, to burn with jealousy and anger, to be in- 

 cited to vengeance, and to pass her time without labor," 

 instead of one " zealous for the good of the community, a 

 defender of the public rights, enjoying an immunity from 

 the stimulas of sexual appetite and the pains of parturi- 

 tion ; laborious, industrious, patient, ingenious, skilful; 

 incessantly engaged in the nurture of the young, in col- 

 lecting honey and pollen, in elaborating wax, in con- 

 structing cells and the like ! — paying the most respectful 

 and assiduous attention to objects which, had its ovaries 

 been developed, it would have hated and pursued with the 

 most vindictive fury till it had destroyed them !"* All 

 these changes may be produced by a mere modification of 

 the embryotic progress, which it is within the power of 

 the adult animals to effect. But it is important to observe 

 that this modification is different from working a direct 

 * Kirby and Speice. 



