AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 319 



cold weather and at night they get upon them and impart 

 the necessary warmth by brooding over them in clusters.^ 

 Connected with this part of their domestic economy, M. P. 

 Huber, a worthy scion of a celebrated stock, and an inheritor 

 of the science and merits of the great Huber as well as of 

 his name, in his excellent paper on these insects in the 

 sixth volume of the Linnean Transactions, from which 

 most of these facts are drawn, relates a singularly curious 

 anecdote. 



In the course of his ingenious and numerous experiments, 

 M. Huber put under a bell-glass about a dozen humble-bees 

 without any store of wax, along with a comb of about ten 

 silken cocoons so unequal in height that it was impossible the 

 mass should stand firmly. Its unsteadiness disquieted the 

 humble-bees extremely. Their affection for their young led 

 them to mount upon the cocoons for the sake of imparting 

 warmth to the enclosed little ones, but in attempting this the 

 comb tottered so violently that the scheme was almost im- 

 practicable. To remedy this inconvenience, and to make the 

 comb steady, they had recourse to a most ingenious expedient. 

 Two or three bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves 

 over its edge, and with their heads downwards fixed their fore 

 feet on the table upon which it stood, whilst with their hind 

 feet they kept it from falling. In this constrained and pain- 

 ful posture, fresh bees relieving their comrades when weary, 

 did these affectionate little insects support the comb for nearly 



1 A new and very remarkable fact observed by Mr. Newport, and communi- 

 cated in bis valuable paper on the temperature of insects, is that in the process 

 of incubation above referred to, especially that adopted ten or twelve hours be- 

 fore the nymph makes its appearance as a perfect humble-bee, the required 

 augmentation of heat is produced by the nurse or brooding-bees voluntarily 

 increasing the number of their respirations, which at first are very gradual, but 

 become more and more frequent until they reach sometimes 120 or 130 per 

 minute ; and Mr, Newport has seen a bee on the combs continue perseveringly 

 to respire at this rate for eight or ten hours till its temperature was greatly in- 

 creased and its; body bathed in perspiration, when she would generally discontinue 

 her office for a time and an individual occasionally take her place. From an 

 observation made at noon, July 13., he found that while the thermometer stood 

 at 70°'2 in the external air, and at 80° -2 on the tops of the cells of the hive not 

 brooded on, it stood at 92° -5 when placed in contact with the bodies of the in- 

 cubating nurse-bees, which thus by their voluntary rapid respiration imparted 

 an additional heat of 12°-3 to the enclosed nymph. {Phil. Trans. 1837, p. 296.) 



