Meanwhile some prudent and faithful messengers are despatched from the cluster to examine the neighbouring localities best adapted for a new establishment. M. Debeauvoys was the first to observe this act of prudence, this special and prudent mission of inspection for the information and guidance of the new colony. A hollow tree, or a cavity in the rock, protected from the north wind, and near a brook where they can conveniently drink, are the conditions which weigh most with our prudent emigrants. A hive fully prepared and already furnished with honey they do not regard with indifference. They are very decisive in their movements, being directed by an excellent sense. Shall we affirm that they have quitted without regret the native land where they toiled so successfully? And that, having once forsaken it, they think of it no more? By no means. The mother especially,--"giddy" as they call her,--has her fancies for return, and twice--nay, thrice--persists in going back, carrying with her the too devoted colony. What would befall if, in these home-visits, she found herself face to face with the new queen whom the non-emigrating people have substituted in her place? There would be a combat. And this, too, happens without emigration, when, spite of all the efforts that are made to prevent her, a young mother, having forced her way through the wall of her apartment, reveals to the old queen the detested object of her jealousy. A duel then infallibly takes place. However, as each knows the other to be armed with a mortal dart, their natural cowardice would moderate their fury, and limit the struggle to a few harmless shocks, and an innocent wrestle, like the pugilistic display of paid athletes. But the people who gather round and look on from a near point of view are very grave, and mean the affair to be so. Division in the community would be the greatest of all evils. Moreover, they are so economical and temperate for themselves, so parsimonious for others, that they take into consideration, I am sure, the enormous cost that would result from the establishment of a couple of queens. Each one of them, royally nourished as they are, is a serious trouble to the republic. The State would be ruined if it had to pay a double budget. Therefore one of them must die. And hence arises a strange spectacle, completely characteristic of the singular spirit of this people: the object of adoration, recently gorged, and brushed, and caressed,--if she recoil, is led back to the combat, is impelled and driven into it, until one of the two antagonists contrives to leap upon the other, and from its bended and superjacent abdomen plunges into the latter's entrails the irremissible poignard.