82 
THE BltOOD. 
disbelieve the alleged fact, and must, in accordance 
with the truth, withhold from oar favourites the un- 
merited culogimns they have received on this head. 
They are, in fact, in this particular, harsh and unfeel- 
ing in the extreme. In hundreds of instances have 
we seen and pitied the infant insect, when after having 
long struggled to get out of its cradle, it has at last 
succeeded so far as to extrude the head ; and when 
labouring with the most eager impatience, and on the 
very point of extricating the shoulders also, which 
would at once secure its exit, a dozen or two of 
workers, in following their avocations, trample with- 
out ceremony over the struggling creature, which is 
then forced, for the safety of its head, to pop quickly 
down into its cell, and wait till the unfeeling crowd 
pass on, before it can renew its efforts to escape. 
Again and again are the same impatient exertions re- 
peated by the same individual, and with similar mor- 
tifying interruptions, beforo it succeeds in obtaining 
its freedom. Not the slightest attention or sympathy 
is observable on the part of the workers in these cir- 
cumstances ; nor did we ever, in a single instance, 
witness the kind parental cares which seem to owe 
their existence to the fancy of the writers alluded to. 
During the larva-stage, as we have shewn, the soli- 
citude of the workers about the welfare and nourish- 
ment of their infant charge is extreme ; but from the 
moment they have sealed up the cell, and while the 
larva is undergoing its transformation, they seem to 
cease from every thing like individual attention ; and 
though when a brood-comb is meddled with, their 
