1923] Notes on the Egg-Eating Habit of Bumblebees 197 
the wildness of the instinct which carried them away at a certain 
instant. That is one of the most astonishing habits among those 
which we owe to the observations of Hoffer, and one of the most 
inexplicable which the biology of bumblebees presents. That 
the egg-laying queen energetically defends her offspring, is such 
an ordinary and natural act that it cannot surprise us. As for 
the acquired instinct [of destroying the eggs], that is the natural 
consequence of the momentary cannibalism of the disappeared 
ones [instincts] when the indifferent mother abandoned her eggs 
to the voracity of her first-born. But why this fratricidal instinct, 
this passing madness, which for an instant interrupts and some- 
what mars the upright and honest life of bumblebees? Indeed, 
in the case of the hivebee, we sometimes see the workers destroy, 
and without doubt also devour the eggs. But that only happens 
at a time when honey is abundant in the flowers, when the care 
of storing up as many provisions as possible, obliges them to 
sacrifice these objects of such tender solicitude ***. Here [in the 
case of bumblebees] the guilty ones have no such excuse. We are 
actually confronted with a case of plain gluttony. A freshly-laid 
egg is undoubtedly a delicacy which gives off an irresistable 
fragrance. That is perhaps all that we need to see in this habit; 
an imperfection of the social instinct which selection has not 
succeeded in correcting. The necessity of restricting too great 
a multiplication of the colony, cannot be entertained for a 
moment [as a possible explanation]. Here, as in the case of the 
hivebee, and elsewhere, a large population means riches and 
power. And if nature wished to moderate the increase, she had — • 
without speaking of parasites — a much more simple and less 
savage means ; that of restricting*****the number of eggs in the 
ovaries of the queen. 
^That is not all. If we suppose that a restriction in the 
number of eggs is advantageous — which in some way would 
justify the fratricidal instinct of the workers^, of what use is 
the instinct of the mother which impels her to defend her eggs, 
an instinct which is diametrically opposed to the first? Why two 
instincts, not only contrary, but even contradictory? And if we 
accept that the voracity of the workers requires a corrective 
that the maternal instinct of the queen be from that time useful 
