108 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



further divided into fertile and sterile 1 : for some of them, 

 which in their infancy are supposed to have partaken of some 

 portion of the royal jelly, lay male eggs. There is found in 

 some hives, according to Huber, a kind of bees, which, from 

 having less down upon the head and thorax, appear blacker 

 than the others, by whom they are always expelled from the 

 hive, and often killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissection, were 

 discovered in these bees, though not furnished with eggs. 

 This discovery induced M lle * J urine, the lady who dissected 

 them, to examine the common workers in the same way; and she 

 found in all that she examined, what had escaped Swammer- 

 dam, perfect though sterile ovaries. 2 It is worth inquiry, 

 though M. Huber gives no hint of this kind, whether these 

 were not in fact superannuated bees, that could no longer 

 take part in the labours of the hive. Thorley remarks, 

 which confirms this idea, that if you closely observe a hive 

 of bees in July, you may perceive many amongst them 

 of a dark colour, with wings rent and torn; but that 

 in September not one of them is to be seen. 3 Huber 

 does not say whether the wings of the bees in question were 

 lacerated ; but in superannuated insects the hair is often 

 rubbed olF the body, which gives them a darker hue than that 

 of more recent individuals of the same species. Should this 

 conjecture turn out true, their banishment and destruction of 

 the seniors of the hive would certainly not show our little 

 creatures in a very amiable point of view. Yet it seems the 

 law of their nature to rid their community of all super- 

 numerary and useless members, as is evident from their 

 destruction of the drones after their work is done. 



It is not often that insects have been weighed; but 

 Reaumur's curiosity was excited to know the weight of bees ; 

 and he found that 336 weighed an ounce, and 5376 a pound. 

 According to John Hunter, an ale-house pint contains 2160 

 workers. 



I have described to you the persons of the different indivi- 



1 In hives where a queen laying male eggs has been killed, the workers con- 

 tinue to make only male cells, though supplied with a fertile queen, and the 

 fertile workers lay eggs in them. Schirach, 258. 



2 Huber, ii. 425. 3 Thorley On Bees, 179. 



