PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



173 



degree of heat above that of the hottest days of summer. 1 

 He observes that their motion, and even the agitation of their 

 wings, increases the heat of their atmosphere. Often, when 

 the squares of glass in a hive appeared cold to the touch, if 

 either by design or chance he happened to disturb the bees, 

 and the agglomerated mass in a tumult began to move dif- 

 ferent ways, sending forth a great hum, in a very short time 

 so considerable an accession of heat was produced, that when 

 he touched the same squares of glass he felt them as hot as if 

 they had been held near a fierce fire. By teasing the bees, 

 the heat generated was sometimes so great as to soften very 

 much the wax of the combs, and even to cause them to fall. 2 

 The above conclusions, however, of Reaumur and Huber, 

 as to the great temperature of the interior of bee-hives in 

 winter, are contrary to the results obtained by George New- 

 port, Esq., from his minute and very valuable series of ex- 

 periments to determine this point, which will be further 

 adverted to in directing your attention to the hybernation of 

 insects ; but this excellent comparative anatomist, of whose 

 labours British entomology is so justly proud, has not only 

 fully confirmed what these entomologists have advanced as 

 to the extra heat generated by bees in their hives in summer, 

 but, after showing that all insects have a temperature greater 

 than that of the surrounding atmosphere, and that this tem- 

 perature, as in vertebrate animals, is intimately dependent on 

 the volume and velocity of their circulation, and the quantity 

 and activity of their respiration, has proved that it is in con- 

 sequence of the greater energy of this last function in bees 

 and humble-bees, owing to the superior development and 

 capacity of their tracheae and vesicular dilatations, that their 

 power of producing heat is so much greater than that of 

 most other insects. If, as happened to myself a few days ago, 

 a wild bee should chance to drop on a newspaper you are 

 reading in the open air, and you observe it attentively, you 

 will see it pant like a greyhound after a chase, the alternate 

 rapid contraction and expansion of its abdominal segments 

 corresponding with the numerous and rapid acts of respiration 



1 Ubi supr. 



2 Reaum. v. 672. 



