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while she is occupied in laying her eggs, endeavour to seize them from her, and, if they succeed, greedily devour them. To prevent this violence, her utmost activity is scarcely adequate; and it is only after she has again and again beat off the murderous intruders and pursued them to the furthest verge of the nest, that she succeeds in her operation. When finished, she is still under the necessity of closely guarding the cell, which the gluttonous workers would otherwise tear open, and devour the eggs. This duty she performs for six or eight hours with the vigilance of an Argus, at the end of which time they lose their taste for this food, and will not touch it even when presented to them. Here the labours of the mother cease, and are succeeded by those of the workers. These know the precise hour when the grubs have consumed their stock of food, and from that time to their maturity regularly feed them with either honey or pollen, introduced in their proboscis through a small hole in the cover of the cell opened for the occasion and then carefully closed.

They are equally assiduous in another operation. As the grubs increase in size the cell which contained them becomes too small, and in their exertions to be more at ease they split its thin sides. To fill up these breaches as fast as they occur with a patch of wax, is the office of the workers, who are constantly on the watch to discover when their services are wanted; and thus the cells daily increase in size, in a way which to an observer ignorant of the process seems very extraordinary.

The last duty of these affectionate foster-parents is to assist the young bees in cutting open the cocoons which

have inclosed them in the state of pupa. A previous labour however must not be omitted. The workers adopt similar measures with the hive-bee for maintaining the young pupa concealed in these cocoons in a genial temperature. In 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 inclosed little ones, but in attempting this the comb tottered so violently that the scheme was almost impracticable. 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 painful posture, fresh bees relieving their comrades when weary, did these affectionate little insects

support the comb for nearly three days! At the end of this period they had prepared a sufficiency of wax with which they built pillars that kept it in a firm position but by some accident afterwards these got displaced, when they had again recourse to their former manœuvre for supplying their place, and this operation they perseveringly continued until M. Huber, pitying their hard case, relieved them by fixing the object of their attention firmly on the table2.

It is impossible not to be struck with the reflection that this most singular fact is inexplicable on the supposition that insects are impelled to their operations by a blind instinct alone. How could mere machines have thus provided for a case which in a state of nature has probably never occurred to ten nests of humble-bees since the creation? If in this instance these little animals were not guided by a process of reasoning, what is the distinction between reason and instinct? How could the most profound architect have better adapted the means to the end-how more dexterously shored up a tottering edifice, until his beams and his props were in readiness?

With respect to the operations of the termites in rearing their young I have not much to observe. All that is known is, that they build commodious cells for their reception, into which the eggs of the queen are conveyed by the workers as soon as laid, and where when hatched they are assiduously fed by them until they are able to provide for themselves.

a Linn. Trans. vi. 247 &c.

In concluding this subject, it may not be superfluous to advert to an objection which is sometimes thrown out against regarding with any particular sympathy the affection of the lower animals to their young, on the ground that this feeling is in them the result of corporeal sensation only, and wholly different from that love which human parents feel for their offspring. It is true that the latter involves moral considerations which cannot have place in the brute creation; but it would puzzle such objectors to explain in what respect the affection which a mother feels for her new-born infant the moment it has seen the light, differs from that of an insect for its progeny. The affection of both is purely physical, and in each case springs from sensations interwoven by the Creator in the constitution of his creatures. If the parental love of the former is worthy of our tenderest sympathies, that of the latter cannot be undeserving of some portion of similar feeling.

I am, &c.

LETTER XII.

ON THE FOOD OF INSECTS.

INSECTS like other animals draw their food from the vegetable and animal kingdoms; but a very slight survey will suffice to show that they enjoy a range over far

more extensive territories.

To begin with the vegetable kingdom. Of this vast field the larger animals are confined to a comparatively small portion. Of the thousands of plants which clothe the face of the earth, when we have separated the grasses and a trifling number of herbs and shrubs, the rest are disgusting to them, if not absolute poisons. But how infinitely more plenteous is the feast to which Flora invites the insect tribes! From the gigantic banyan which covers acres with its shade, to the tiny fungus scarcely visible to the naked eye, the vegetable creation is one vast banquet at which her insect guests sit down. Perhaps not a single plant exists which does not afford a delicious food to some insect, not excluding even those most nauseous and poisonous to other animals-the acrid euphorbias, and the lurid henbane and nightshade. Nor is it a presumptuous supposition that a considerable proportion of these vegetables were created expressly for their entertainment and support. The common nettle

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