the queen is still laying eggs, deferentially attended, as usual, by her maids of honour; the young brood is still being fed; other bees are ventilating the hive at its entrance and within its streets and lanes by the rapid vibration of their wings; the sentinels are diligently keeping guard to repel the inimical intrusion of wasps or snails or woodlice, or the moth which is so destructive to the interior in her larva state, from the covered moveable silken retreat which she constructs impervious to the sting, and thence with impunity gets at the silk of the cocoons and consumes the wax, making, when once fairly domiciled, such fearful havoc in the hive that the bees are fain to desert it,—and the many other numerous enemies which lust for the luscious honey, or whose voracity is attracted by the poor little diligent bees themselves, but who in such contingencies exhibit invincible courage, which, if not always successful in its efforts, is always meritorious. Where self-preservation is not the prompter, or the rivalry of love the instigator, but the duration of which is limited to a season, the feuds of the animal world all seem to proceed from the urgency of their gastronomic suggestions, the acrimony of which urges craft and strength to their most powerful exhibition. To allay hunger, destruction is perpetrated and order despoiled, and thus our bees become the victims of the imperativeness of this universal law. But sometimes they are triumphant over a very large enemy; for instance, an intrusive mouse, or a slug that has slimed its way through the arched portal. They have been known to kill these enemies within the hive as they could not make them withdraw, but perplexity results from their success; they are, however, gifted with the sagacity to know that the putridity of these masses will poison with its effluvia the atmosphere of their city which no ventilation can purify, and they convert that part of their metropolis into a mausoleum, covering the carcases with a coating of propolis, alone or mixed with wax, as before noticed. Those which execute this summary martial law are the sentinels—the armed police of the hive—which guard its entrance and avenues, and patrol its streets and lanes and passages. Concurrently with all these doings, scavengers are heedfully conveying away any particles of dirt or other undesirable superfluity which may have accidentally found its way in. That all these labours produce fatigue and exact rest is proved by the circumstance that many bees are always observed in a state of repose,—perhaps only forty winks during the day just to restore exhausted energy,—for they are soon seen again to resume their toil, this inactivity never being idleness. Whether they proceed with the same kind of employment upon the renewal of their work is not known, nor how long lasts a particular kind of labour, but the change of occupation may be one of frequent occurrence,