that the account is graphic, interesting, and morally instructive:

"The Bees that remain after the swarm has taken its departure divide into two parties, which marshal themselves around the respective queens, and then march against one another within the hive itself.

66 'Presently the armies approach one another from either side; they meet face to face; and what follows? Will the onslaught at once begin? This would indeed be the case if they were human beings, of whom thousands would rush to their fate, and streams of blood would be shed for the sake of one ruler.

"But no! the Bees are wiser; what care they, with their constitutional régime, whether the reins of power be held by a member of the house of Hapsburg or of Hohenzollern! Let the ambitious aspirants decide the struggle for supremacy by single combat!' So say the Bees, and they look on quietly whilst the duel is being fought, quite content to tender their allegiance to the survivor: the fight for the throne is merely a combat between the pretenders.

"Would that the human race, which conceives itself to be so wise and perfect, had, under similar circumstances, adopted this principle of action: how much less blood would have been spilt upon this fair earth, whose surface has been so often fertilized by the bodies of human beings, slain in battle!

"The two rivals now fall upon one another with ungovernable fury, whilst the workers stand by as spectators, with their fore legs drawn beneath the body.

"The combatants seize each other with their jaws by the neck, head, and legs, endeavour to confound one another by rapid vibrations of their wings, butt their heads together, grasp each other with their legs, and seek every available opportunity to give effect to their terrible stings. With this view they endeavour to reach the vulnerable portions between the rings of the body, at the neck, or the constricted part that connects the chest and abdomen.

"At length the fatal thrust is given! the dagger penetrates between the rings and enters the vital parts; the pierced combatant shrinks back, staggers, and falls, and, after one or two convulsive throbs, she closes her eyes for ever!

"With ineffable pride the conqueror approaches the corpse, and treats it with triumphant scorn, forgetting, indeed, that it is her sister that is stretched lifeless before her, slain by her own accursed weapon. She spurns it once or twice with her feet, to satisfy herself that life is extinct, and then turns away to receive the homage of her subjects *."

Thus, according to Vogt, do the Bees decide their differences, not by wholesale warfare as with us, but by single combat. Not wishing, however, to interrupt his interesting narrative by interpolating any of our own remarks, we have deferred until now making the inquiry about those Bee-battles that take place in mid-air, where honey is concerned, and on which occasions the ground below is literally covered with the bodies of the combatants. How about those, M.

* Translated from 'Untersuchungen in den Thierstaaten.'

Vogt? Bees fight for honey, reader, as man fights for money, whatever M. Vogt may say to the contrary!

Although we have shown that the queen is capable, whilst in her virgin state, of depositing eggs that will produce drones, yet this is contrary to the laws even of Bee-life; and the union of the sexes takes place a few days after the appearance of the young queen, one impregnation being sufficient to last her whole life. Indeed, the fertilized queen not only produces and deposits her thousands and tens of thousands of fertile eggs during one season, but, as we have already stated, she is ready on the return of spring to recommence, with full activity, her functions as mother of the hive.

About the time of pairing, the drones, who usually remain hidden in the inmost recesses of the hive, are tempted by the fine weather to leave it and enjoy the genial atmosphere. Presently the queen makes her appearance, and, accompanied by a considerable number of drones, her suitors, departs upon what is termed by apiarists her wedding flight; for you must know, reader, that Bee-marriages are the very reverse of matrimony amongst ourselves. With us marriages are said to be conceived in heaven, and consummated on earth; whereas, in the Bee-world, they are in all likelihood conceived in the hive, and, at any rate, it is now an established fact that they are consummated high up in the heavens*.

* See the summary of opinions on this subject in Siebold's 'Parthenogenesis,' p. 51.

On her return from her wedding-flight, the queen is received by her faithful subjects with every demonstration of joy, and shortly afterwards she commences the deposition of eggs, first (as before remarked) of workers, then drones, and lastly of queens; and, about the beginning of autumn, if the hive be well managed, her fruitful labours give rise to another swarm.

But by far the most wonderful circumstance in connexion with the natural history of the Bee has still to be noticed, and that is the artificial production of a Queen-bee from a Worker-grub, should the hive by any mishap be left without a ruler.

To the uninitiated, this phenomenon would appear nothing short of a miracle, for it not only seems to necessitate highly developed reasoning faculties in the insect, but would denote that it possesses a much greater influence in the direction and modification of the laws of nature than do we ourselves.

True it is that we can engraft one species of plant upon another and produce a hybrid, or that we can hatch an egg by artificial incubation; but is there anything in our power over nature that will enable us to obtain a result at all approaching that of the conversion of a Worker-larva into a Queen-bee, as performed by these insects?

Although the operation will always remain a very wonderful one, especially as regards the instinct that guides the Bee in its performance, yet, when it is considered in connexion with the ascertained phenomena in the development of the insect, it will lose

some of its mystery, but, at the same time, will acquire additional interest; for, let us here remark, that, however marvellous some of the operations of Nature may appear to those who are unacquainted with her laws, her attractive features are considerably enhanced when they come to be more fully understood and appreciated.

As before observed, the chief differences between the conditions necessary for the rearing of a queen and a worker are, that in the former the egg is deposited in a large oval vertical cell, and the insect is fed during the whole of its larval existence upon royal paste, a food elaborated by the Bees in their digestive organs; whilst the worker is reared in the ordinary horizontal hexagonal cell, and after a certain number of days (according to most authors, on the third day after its birth), its food is changed, and it is nourished with a mixture of honey and pollen. The result of this modified treatment in the worker is, that its female reproductive organs, ovaries, &c., are but imperfectly developed; and, as a rule, it is rendered incapable of oviposition*.

Now if, instead of feeding these worker-larvæ only three days upon royal paste, they were nourished on this species of food during the whole of their larvahood, and if the other conditions as to dimensions

* Whether it is, however, that the workers bred in the vicinity of a royal cell sometimes receive royal food in mistake, or from whatever other cause, it is certain that they occasionally oviposit, but in all cases unfertilized eggs, from which drones only proceed.